While this is a global phenomenon, it is for the first time that the Indian Music Industry (IMI) is making an effort to stop this before it erodes the revenue stream of music companies like it is already happening in the software, gaming and the movie segments.
Sony Computer Entertainment, an arm of Sony Pictures, is planning to increase its console-based business in India.The company - responsible for the distribution, marketing and sales of PlayStation - opened its India office four months back and is now getting its strategy in place to offer variety and a better experience to gamers.
Indian IT service providers are increasing their exposure in the healthcare and pharma segments. Multi-million dollar deals in this space by IT firms over the past three-four months only buttress this trend. Healthcare outsourcing has moved away from just undertaking medical transcription and business process outsourcing (BPO) work to core functions such as drug discovery, testing, research and development.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has suggested stringent conditions for participatory notes (P-notes) that are issued even by registered foreign institutional investors (FIIs). In a note sent to the finance ministry on the eve of the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) board meeting to decide on restrictions for P-notes, the central bank has reiterated its earlier stance of a complete ban on P-notes.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India will increase overseas participation in the Indian stock markets and is planning two specific measures in this regard, Sebi Chairman M Damodaran told Business Standard in an exclusive interview.
US-based Spectrum Global Fund Administration, providing back-office operations to hedge funds in the US and the UK, is closing its facilities in India. The company had started its operations in India two years ago.
In a meeting between the central bank and market participants last week, it was also decided that futures would be introduced both as an exchange-traded product and over the counter. The RBI will also be reviving interest rate futures that were introduced in 2003, but failed to take off due to the lack of a well-developed pricing curve in the market across maturiites.
Overseas markets are already hit by an acute dollar crunch, which is why major central banks, the US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England, had to infuse funds into the market. These lines of credit are over and above the stand-by credit, which is usually maintained by foreign banks with the Indian banks.
Unlike the first quarter of FY08 when Indian IT small- and mid-caps were hit hard due to a nearly 7 per cent appreciation in the rupee against the dollar, the July-September period was relatively kind to these firms. It spared them to some extent, since the rupee appreciated around 1.5 per cent over the period. However, the rupee rose around 12 per cent against the dollar over the last 12 months.
Contrary to popular understanding, operators do not manage these incoming votes. It is the channel operators who manage and collate the results of these SMSes. Yet, in terms of revenue sharing, close to 70 per cent of the share goes to the telecom provider while the channels get only 30 per cent.
Indian notebook sales are moving at a scorching pace -- 73 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2007 -- and this is affecting the volume growth in the IT peripherals market.
Among its suggestions to the finance ministry, RBI has also said the government should classify private equity under a separate category of foreign investment, or create sub-limits within foreign direct investment or investments by foreign institutional investors.
Close to 60 per cent of revenues of Indian IT service providers comes from the US market. With the rupee having appreciated more than 12 per cent over the past year, IT firms have increased billing rates, in most cases for new as well as existing clients.
The finance ministry is of the view that all interests -- direct and indirect -- should be taken into account and that there should not be any threshold for calculating total effective foreign shareholding in a company.
Indian IT firms have been announcing incremental increase in billing rates for quite some time now to counter wage hikes and rising visa costs, to name a few.
Mumbai-based Patni Computer System's stake sale has been stalled, perhaps indefinitely, according to sources close to the development.
Individuals may soon get to invest in overseas commodity and equity derivatives.
At a high-level coordinate committee meeting to be held by the month-end, the government and the Reserve Bank of India will take stock of the situation.
The company will be taking its total outsourcing offering to the retailers in the small and medium enterprise category, whereas for the large retailers, it will pitch the best-of-the-breed target solutions to cater to specific problems.
The central bank's objective is to align the regulations for such loans with the tenure and end-use norms for external commercial borrowings in a bid to check foreign currency inflows.
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