Master of many arts

Salman Iqbal is a multi-faceted personality. From being the Founder and CEO of ARY Digital Network to being the Owner of Karachi Kings and the President of World Memon Organization, Iqbal handles all his responsibility with ease and élan. Excerpts from an interview:

Balancing multiple roles

Talking about donning the garb of many roles, Iqbal says that balance comes with time.

"With the growth and expansion of a business, you start to automatically compartmentalise your thinking according to various sectors. I would be sitting in A creative programming meeting one hour, the next hour with my cricket team, and then with my contractor later. But at each meeting, I would be 150 per cent focused on that specific matter. It is also extremely important for me to delegate  matters to a great team around me that helps me run each division."   

Social/online media influence on the entertainment sector

With the advent of social media and digital content consumption, we are witnessing revolutionary changes to the entertainment sector globally, says Iqbal.

"Our television industry is still very strong in Pakistan as well as globally. Yes, web series and content, of course, is slowly taking over. But I would not say that they have completely taken over and replaced television as a medium - there is still time for that to happen."

According to him, the Covid-19 pandemic has sped up some of these changes. "Over the last year, we have seen movies releasing on digital OTT platforms instead of theatres; more content is being made for digital distribution avenues. We are fully aware of this and therefore have a lot of work going on for the digital world. Social media engagement and online viewing is one of the most important pillars of our network today.

Huge success of the movie production house

Iqbal attributes his success to the love that the people of Pakistan have given him. He adds that in the olden days, the Pakistan film industry was a giant but then it saw a downturn and it eventually lost its popularity.

"I had a dream of restarting and reviving the Pakistani film industry. Driven by this goal, we rolled the dice and invested in the film industry and by the grace of Allah with our decisions and strategy we are now an integral part of the film industry and the all-time highest grossing films of Pakistan are all from the ARY stable. We are now beating our own records at the box office. Our first movie did a business of Rs250 million, then we did Rs500 million and then we went up to a billion rupees."

The inception of ARY Laguna

Iqbal's company has been very active in the real estate sector and has been a part of many construction projects in Pakistan and the UAE as well. However, in Pakistan, they were never under the brand name of ARY. So, in that regard it was the first time that ARY launched its real estate arm in Pakistan and offered something really unique for the end consumer.

Iqbal reveals: "The uniqueness comes from the fact that ARY is the only company in Pakistan, which has managed to procure the Crystal Lagoons Technology. This is a Chilean patented technology and is manufactured in the US. We managed to negotiate and convince them to build a project in Pakistan. This is a feather in ARY's cap that we signed them on and then launched the 'ARY Laguna'."

He adds: "Initially, we have launched 'ARY Laguna' in Karachi and Gujranwala and we are planning to go to Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar. Our target market is just Pakistan for the time being as the country itself is a huge market with great potential. So, we want to see how this project fares in Pakistan and then we will see if and how we can replicate it in other global locations. It is a mammoth project, which has received encouraging feedback and an overwhelming response."

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