Will open radio access network technology (O-RAN) disrupt the way 5G networks roll out in the country? After all, it promises to offer a substantially lower capital cost, enables the choice of an array of vendors, and provides more network flexibility - all very important for telcos who expect to invest over Rs 60,000 crore to roll out a pan-India 5G network and that's without spectrum costs. But more importantly, it counters the stranglehold of global telecom gear makers such as Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung over telcos to whom they sell propriety technology and bundled hardware and software.
Elon Musk's decision to drop the idea of acquiring Twitter over purported under-reporting of fake accounts due to the use of bots has opened a can of worms on what is a growing and crucial problem - advertisers who put in money based on these falsified numbers (which is the mainstay revenue of these platforms) are making losses; they are paying for bots in the guise of viewers. mFilterIt - a global digital and advertising (ad) fraud detection and protection company in India - says search engines like Google have the lowest average ad fraud rate of 10-12 per cent, based on the inference arrived at while working with clients that use these platforms. This means 10-12 per cent of the ad viewership is generated by machines.
With the Adanis submitting an earnest money deposit (EMD) of just Rs 100 crore on Monday for the upcoming 5G spectrum auction, the apprehension among the rivals that the group is nursing ambitions of being an all-India mobile player has been allayed at least for now. Based on its EMD, analysts say it can buy spectrum worth just Rs 900 crore, whose use will be limited to enterprises and captive networks -- that too is likely only in a few circles where it has its infrastructure like ports, airports, and power stations. While getting all-India millimetre band spectrum of 400 MHz (which costs Rs 2,800 crore) is ruled out, it might choose circles like Gujarat and Mumbai to start with.
The Tata Tech IPO will be the first from the Tata group since TCS listed its shares in 2004.
As the Indian currency hovers around its lowest versus the US greenback, several smaller and mid-sized companies are expected to face rough weather as almost 44 per cent of the foreign loans taken by Indian companies remained unhedged. According to the data sourced from the Reserve Bank of India, Indian companies raised around $38.2 billion in the financial year ended in March. Of this, only 56 per cent of the loans are hedged while the rest of the foreign loans remain unhedged, thus risking the companies to forex volatility.
In the late 1990s, Japanese electronics brand Aiwa tied up with a maverick entrepreneur, Kabir Mulchandani, to sell its consumer electronic products. Founder of Baron International, Mulchandani, all of 26 at that time, had already disrupted the television market through a tie-up with another Japanese player, Akai. With a strategy that relied on heavy discounts, exchange offers and freebies, Akai was selling in huge volumes.
Institutional shareholders of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) are expecting big-ticket announcements from the company, including timeline for listing of its telecom and retail subsidiaries. They expect this to unlock value in the company, which has seen a sharp fall in market valuation on Friday. This is due to windfall tax imposed by the Centre on refiners and oil producers.
Akash Ambani's first big job as he takes over as chairman of Reliance Jio, the group's telecom arm, is a no-brainer - he has to get his company through the long-awaited 5G auctions that are a few weeks away. But his bigger job, analysts said, will be to lead the transformation of the telecom company into a tech giant, a process that is underway as it seeks to list in the US. Insiders said there has been plenty of debate within the company's top executives on the auction strategy.
'Kartik is an outsider, so he takes nothing for granted. That's why he will do well.'
American retail major Walgreens Boots Alliance on Tuesday said it would retain its pharma retail business - Boots UK - thus abandoning the entire sale process. The company did not make any comment specifically on the offer made by Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries (RIL), which had made a bid for the company last month. "As a result of market instability severely impacting financing availability, no third party has been able to make an offer that adequately reflects the high potential value of Boots and No7 Beauty Company.
The industry may account for just 0.05 per cent of the total volume of single-use plastics in the country. And the product it uses is just one among the 22 - including spoons, forks, plates, knives and trays - that will be banned across the country from July 1 by government order. Yet, it is the plastic straw that is at the centre of public focus as fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies make a last-ditch effort to get the government to extend the deadline.
In one of the biggest donations by a business family in India, the family of Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani on Thursday committed to donating Rs 60,000 crore (around $7.7 billion) to various charities related to health care, education, and skill development. The commitment has been made to mark Gautam Adani's 60th birthday on Friday as well as the birth centenary year of his father Shantilal Adani. The corpus will be administered by the Adani Foundation. "At a very fundamental level, [programmes] related to all these three areas should be seen holistically and they collectively form the drivers to build an equitable and future-ready India.
'We showcased about 20 use cases in 5G trials in Pune and Gandhinagar and some of them were interesting and innovative.' 'However, which ones will take off and which ones would not be relevant, we don't know yet.'
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has bluntly told the government there is no reason for its members to roll out 5G networks as they will be unviable if 'captive private wireless networks' are allowed to be run by enterprises. The COAI, which has Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea as its key members, has written to Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw saying there is 'no business case for the roll out of 5G networks'. Permitting such captive networks will 'diminish the revenue so much that there will be no viable business case left for the telecom service providers and there will not remain any need for 5G network roll out by telecom service providers (TSPs)'.
Japanese tech investor SoftBank may end up investing around $1 billion in India in 2022, nearly a third of what it did last year, according to people closely tracking its plans. Last year, SoftBank undertook investments of $3.2 billion in 12 deals. In the first five months of CY22, the giant investor has invested $400-500 million in five deals.
Electric scooter registrations of eight companies which represent 95 per cent of the market have seen a sharp fall of over 24 per cent in May. They have registered 32,680 electric scooters against 43,098 in April according to VAHAN data from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways available till the evening of 31 May. Auto analysts say the fall is a reflection of the initial pent up demand in the market for such vehicles,which was evinced in huge bookings, being met.
The chipset accounts for over 25%-30% of the cost of an average smart phone. Hence, a reduction in its price, device makers say, will make a huge difference to the cost of a phone.
Recently, world headlines buzzed with Elon Musk's announcement that he was shelving his audacious bid for social media platform Twitter. Away from the media spotlight, questions are being asked about the maverick billionaire's plans in India, too. A few days ago, a Reuters report said Musk's flagship Tesla had put on hold its plan to launch electric cars in India.
Telecom gear makers, who are in talks with telcos, say that if all goes well, they are ready to roll out the first phase of 5G services from October this year and cover the country's top 30-50 cities (in limited areas) by March 2023. The gear makers expect the telecom companies to give them a heads-up about their plans as well as the equipment required by July, and have promised deployment in three to four months after that. India's main telecom gear suppliers are Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung.
Billionaire Gautam Adani on Sunday won the race to acquire Swiss cement major Holcim's stake in Ambuja Cements and its subsidiary ACC for $10.5 bn (around Rs 81,361 crore), including the open offers. The Adani family, through an offshore special-purpose vehicle, announced that it had entered into definitive agreements for the acquisition of Holcim Ltd's entire stake in two of India's leading cement companies -- Ambuja Cements and ACC -- the Adani group said in a statement. The group outbid Ultratech and JSW group to enter the cement industry and also emerge as the country's second-largest cement manufacturer, with 70 million tonnes of capacity annually.
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