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Amit Kumar
Kotak Securities
First-place appearances: 3

Total appearances: 3

Analyst debut: 2011

Amit Kumar, 32, leads the roster for a third year in a row. “His comprehensive view enables him to make great calls with high conviction,” declares one champion of the Kotak Securities analyst. In the short term, Kumar says, “the lack of width in the market and the expensive valuations of the available stocks keep us from taking a strong, broad, positive view.” Furthermore, he foresees subdued advertising over the interim because of rising interest rates and weak economic growth. Kumar is optimistic, however, about the industry’s long-term prospects, citing continued demand for entertainment as well as household-income growth that is supporting the advertising market. In addition, many media companies have achieved sufficient scale and cash flow to invest in their core businesses, he notes, and experiment with a greater variety of platforms, such as FM radio and digital new media. He is tracking several industrywide concerns, including how focused and differentiated each company can become; the ongoing digitization of the group’s television delivery platforms; and whether media companies will be able to depend more over time on subscription revenue, in addition to advertising, to sustain their businesses. One name Kumar urges clients to prefer is Dish TV India, thanks to the Noida-based direct-to-home services provider’s balanced growth, improving balance sheet, and stable regulatory and operating metrics. He also favors the regional print media subsector, which enjoys a robust distribution value chain and readership gains driven by improving literacy rates, he maintains. — Carolyn Koo