The year 2007 surely belonged to the Indian gaming industry. Though investments made were larger than the returns, the number of people playing games certainly grew.
If you search for Benazir Bhutto on the Net, chances are that you would reach a malicious website that will steal your money and personal details stored on the computer and may even crash the system. All this if you do not have a genuine anti-virus installed on the PC.
Matrix's new SIM offering promises less paperwork.
The declining prices of mobile handsets and low connectivity costs have helped in doubling Internet access through cellphones this year.
The Essar group firm is in talks with 7-10 companies for a "strategic fit", as it races to become a $500 million company by 2010. In some of these cases the due diligence process is in progress. Aegis is looking at firms in the US, South America and the Philippines.
Consider these numbers. The latest figures from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India reveal that the number of Indians using their mobiles to logon to the internet has increased from 16 million in 2006 to 38 million in 2007 (both GSM and CDMA).
Players such as Net4, Sify and Worldphone Internet Services are offering International long distance (ILD) calls that work out to less than a rupee a minute by using a technology called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Around 80 million minutes worth of calls are made via VoIP every month (legally), according to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
The effects of the sub-prime crisis and the resultant slowdown of the US market is evident on the margins of Indian information technology (IT) and IT-enabled Services (ITeS) firms. Business process outsourcing (BPO) firms such as Firstsource, Pune-based HOV Services, Zenta, Aegis BPO and others have been receiving inquiries from existing as well as new customers for ramping up their account receivables management (ARM) business.
Players in the Indian animation industry, who primarily cater to movie studios in the US, are increasingly looking at the domestic market, especially after the commercial success of animated movie Hanuman. Of the total revenues generated by the Indian studios, approximately 70 per cent comes from outsourced work.
With the rupee going from strength to strength and attrition a continuing concern for Indian business process outsourcing companies, the new poster child of private equity investors is witnessing adjustments in valuations in the changed scenario.
Hyderabad-based Applabs, providing quality management, testing, and certification solutions, will be increasing its business from the domestic market. In the next 12 months, the company is aiming at a revenue of $4-5 million (around Rs 15-19 crore) from India.
The concerns were legitimate as unlike the IT industry, more than 90 per cent of the cost of BPOs is in rupees while earnings are in dollars. However, the firms have managed well by focusing on increasing productivity, enhancing employee utilisation, increasing billing rates and effecting better management strategies.
Neeraj Bhargava, CEO of Mumbai-based business process outsourcing (BPO firm) WNS Global Services, and his team have voluntarily decided to forfeit their bonuses if they are not successful in getting the attrition rates below 30 per cent. This is probably the first such move of its kind in the industry in which attrition has become a critical issue. WNS has over 15,000 employees, and its current attrition rate stands at 43 per cent.
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.
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.
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.
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