Hindustan Unilever's Q3FY24 performance was lacklustre, with both sales and operating profit barely moving from the year-ago period due to price cuts and higher advertising costs. Besides weak demand, the FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) major is facing increased competitive pressures, particularly from regional players, which, coupled with a slow recovery in rural markets, could put revenues under pressure going forward. Margins are expected to remain range-bound as benefits from falling raw material costs are expected to be neutralised by rising promotional budgets.
A weaker-than-expected sales performance, concerns about higher competitive intensity in the current year, and earning cuts by some brokerages have weighed on the stock of the country's largest paint maker, Asian Paints. While the Q3 volume show was slightly below expectations, the company's operational and bottom line beat estimates, benefiting from the falling raw material costs. The stock ended the day with a decline of over 2 per cent at Rs 3,175 apiece.
Apple Inc is expected to produce iPhones worth $12 billion (freight on board value) in India during 2023-24, according to discussions between the company's vendors and the government. This would account for around 12 per cent of Apple's global iPhone production-higher than the earlier plan of shifting around 9 per cent of the total to India by FY24, which is the third year of the PLI (production-linked incentive) scheme.
The chemicals sector's recovery could be delayed until FY25 if the current trends of weak demand and flat pricing continue. Following a subdued September quarter, the revenue and profit performance of listed chemicals companies are anticipated to fall short of initial expectations of an improvement. Despite some price stability, the demand trajectory remains uncertain.
Even as the near-term outlook for the quick service restaurant (QSR) industry remains muted, brokerages are positive about the prospects of Sapphire Foods India. Their preference for the QSR chain comes on the back of the steady performance of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC), superior execution and reasonable valuations. The Sapphire Foods stock is up 11 per cent since the start of November.
Data for the first nine days of January shows that tourist arrivals from India to the Maldives has been at similar levels as last year during the same period.
From its lows in December, the stock of Tata Motors is up about 15 per cent. The gains came on the back of better than expected December volumes in its UK-based subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). This coupled with gradual recovery in the global passenger vehicle demand, improving profitability due to product mix and lower commodity costs are expected to be key positives for the company.
Indian shoppers accounted for 13 per cent of the total hours spent by mobile users across the globe on their shopping apps in 2023, next only to China in this regard. According to the "State of Mobile -2024" report released a few days ago by data.ai (previously known as App Annie), which looks into various segments of the app economy across the world, in the last calendar year, users in India collectively spent 12.84 billion hours on shopping apps. This represents an increase of over 73 per cent from the time they spent in 2020 and of more than 3.5 per cent over 2022.
India's share of total global venture capital (VC) funding fell to 2.9 per cent in calendar year 2023 (CY23) - the lowest since CY19 - reaching $7.3 billion as most startups struggled to raise money without compromising on their earlier valuations. Based on global data by CB Insights on VC funding, funding to Indian startups fell by nearly a third compared to CY22 when it hit $20.6 billion and accounted for 4.8 per cent of the global figure. While the data shows that the world had 71 new unicorns (21 in Asia), India contributed only two of them, as compared with CY22 when it had 22.
The stock of Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL) fell about 3.7 per cent in trade after its Q3FY24 earnings disappointed brokerages and led to downgrades. Further, the stock, after a 15 per cent run-up over the past month prior to Monday's correction, had already factored in the upside from the business front. Its peer in the consumer space, Marico, too, saw a 4 per cent drop in its stock price.
'We carry 6.5 billion passengers every year. We have crossed seven billion this year, and are targeting 10 billion by 2030.'
'Similar to the case of the digital payment system where the government created a public platform and others joined in, we are exploring a similar structure to create a PPP platform where the compute required for AI could be accessed by the small player.'
Despite multiple headwinds at the start of 2023, the Indian markets delivered a strong performance, posting 19-20 per cent growth for the year. Even as new records were set, investor sentiment remains strong going into 2024, given the lower inflation, expectations of steady to lower interest rates, higher economic growth, and strong inflows. However, the overriding concern for most brokerages is valuations.
Dabur India has been the worst performer in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) space this year (CY23), posting a 1 per cent decline even as its peer index, the Nifty FMCG, has delivered returns of over 29 per cent in this period.
Based on discussions with stakeholders, the ministry is proposing to allocate Rs 26,400 crore for FAME-III subsidy alone with electric two wheelers getting around Rs 8,158 crore, electric buses Rs 9,600 crore and electric three-wheelers Rs 4,100 crore, according to sources in the know. Along with some other components like setting up an innovation fund and money for testing , the total allocation could cross Rs 33,000 crore, estimates suggest.
Exports of electronics goods has risen by 24 per cent from April to November as compared with the same period in the last fiscal, the largest increase out of India's top 10 export categories. The increase has been propelled by mobile exports under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme and has pushed electronics up from sixth to fifth position in the top 10. A gap of $200 million separates electronics from occupying the fourth position, currently held by drugs and pharmaceuticals at $17.9 billion.
Ola Electric's initial public offering (IPO), of Rs 5,500 crore, is essentially aimed at ensuring the company maintain its top position in the electric two-wheeler segment, with incumbent players TVS and Bajaj Auto giving a fight to the number one player in market share. Most experts and competitors say the amount being raised is in line with the investment required to expand the electric-vehicle (EV) business. There are two discernible trends in the competitive electric two-wheeler market.
India may be 15th among the top 25 Artificial Intelligence nations, but it has the 'the greatest upward potential' according to research by Tufts University's business school, the Fletcher School. At the top is the US, followed by China, fighting for global leadership in AI followed by the UK, Japan, and Germany. In the 15th spot, India is ahead of Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia and Thailand.
Dixon Technologies right now is a beehive of activity. It is building a new facility in Noida to make 1.3 million laptops for Taiwanese PC maker Acer. The facility must be up and running in four months. The pace of activity will only increase. Last week Dixon won a similar contract from Lenovo, the Chinese personal computer maker and the third largest information technology (IT) hardware brand in India, to assemble laptops and notebooks. Though the clientele in these two cases is Taiwanese and Chinese, Dixon is a company reaching for the stars with its feet planted firmly in the Indian government's policy.
While the market for satellite broadband currently is small, the potential is large as an estimated 30 per cent of the country does not have reliable terrestrial broadband services.
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