The electric scooter juggernaut which has been picking up momentum with heady growth month-on-month is now slowing down. The combined number of registrations in April of eight electric two wheeler companies has seen a dip of over 1 per cent to 43,061 vehicles, according to data from the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways' site VAHAN. The reasons are the continuing shortage of chips, especially after the Ukraine-Russia war, and the spate of fires which have led to scooters being recalled by manufacturers.
Amway maintains the action was related to a case in 2011 and it has been cooperating with the investigative agency.
So far at least eight incidents of EV fires have been reported in just over a month's time.
On August 15 last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced from the ramparts of the Red Fort that the Indian Railways would launch 75 Vande Bharat Express trains by August 2023. Later, in her 2022 Budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that 400 Vande Bharat trains will be manufactured in the next three years, which are expected to cost between Rs 40,000 crore and Rs 50,000 crore. Those upbeat announcements come after a series of cancelled tenders, vigilance actions against officials and interdepartmental rivalry that delayed the addition of these iconic trains developed entirely indigenously by the Integral Coach Factory (ICF) in Chennai.
In 2013, weeks after getting bail in a case of alleged cheating in Kerala, Amway India's then managing director, William Scott Pinckney, declared that the company was aiming to hit revenues of Rs 10,000 crore in India in a decade. Fast forward to 2021, and Milind Pant, Amway's global CEO, announced that the company has designated India as one among the top three markets for growth and investment (after US and China), and is now looking at hitting revenues of Rs 20,000 crore over the long term.
The Tamil Nadu government saw an increase in foreign direct investment by 41.5 per cent during the April-December period.
Ola Electric became the latest among electric scooter (e-scooter) makers to have started the exercise of recalling a specific batch of its model after a rap on the knuckles by the government. Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari on Thursday advised electric vehicle (EV) companies to act responsibly by identifying and recalling defective batches without waiting for orders or guidelines from the ministry. The Bengaluru-based start-up is conducting pre-emptive diagnostics and health check on 1,441 scooters, it said in a statement on Sunday.
In a fragmented electric three-wheeler market where no company has more than a 10 per cent share, leave alone a dominant presence, can Bajaj Auto storm in and become king? The company is set to launch its range of electric auto rickshaws in June and hopes to replicate its success in ICE three-wheelers where it is the undisputed market leader with a 63 per cent market share. Can it be crowned king of the electric three-wheeler market too? Overall, electric sale volumes are growing at breakneck speed.
In December 2019, the India arm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu surprised many with its ultra-competitive bid to become the transaction advisor for the country's largest strategic divestment in Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL). The multinational major quoted just Rs 1; the second-highest bidder, SBI Caps, reportedly quoted Rs 15-17 crore. For Deloitte, the motivation was to bag a prestigious deal adding a national energy company to its portfolio. No doubt, it expected BPCL to go to a marquee buyer in quick time.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has pegged the base price for the combined IPL media rights at Rs 32,890 crore, nearly double the Rs 16,347 that Star Disney paid five years ago. Experts say that at these levels, there does not seem to be any profit-and-loss logic at play. It is more about what premium broadcasting companies are ready to spend for market share dominance. They point out that due to competition, they expect the final price to hit Rs 40,000-50,000 crore.
The government-appointed expert committee, which probes incidents of Ola Electric's S1 Pro and Okinawa vehicles catching fires, has added the latest case of fire involving PureEV electric scooter to its investigation, a senior government official told Business Standard. "A team comprising experts from Indian Institute of Science (IISC) and Centre for Fire, Explosive and Environment Safety (CFEES) are investigating the cases. "As soon as the report is submitted, we shall take appropriate action," said Giridhar Aramane, secretary at the ministry of road transport and highways.
Consumers can expect a 5G launch in the country soon. Telecom companies (telcos) say if auctions take place on time - the target is July - they would be able to offer some services in a few cities by the end of this year and a full roll-out from 2023. But the question is: will 5G turn the tables for telcos financially? Will average revenue per user (ARPU) improve? Will mobile consumers upgrade to 5G quickly and pay more? Will the expanded functions that 5G enables drum up sufficient revenues? In simple terms, will telcos make more money?
Singapore-based e-commerce platform Shopee - that launched in India only in December 2021 - has decided to close operations in the country. The official reason given by Shopee, which is controlled by NYSE-listed Sea Ltd, is changing global sentiments. In a statement, it said, "In view of the global market uncertainties, we have decided to close risks of our early-stage Shopee India initiative." The e-commerce platform has been hit by growing opposition from trade associations led by Praveen Khandelwal as well as homegrown social commerce start-ups.
Taking advantage of a Russian offer to sell its crude oil cheap and bear the cost of insurance and transportation, India may import as much as 2 million tonnes (mt), or roughly 15 million barrels of crude, from the sanctioned nation in 2022, Business Standard has learnt. This comes after reports that Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) bought 3 million barrels of Russian Urals from trader Vitol for May delivery. This will be on cost, insurance and freight (CIF) model, where the seller incurs the costs and pays the freight, including insurance charges.
Seven months after it was launched in India, Apple is expected to start manufacturing the iPhone 13 at the Foxconn plant in Sriperumbudur near Chennai from April, according to sources. The phones will be for both the domestic and export market. The production of the iPhone 13 in the Chennai plant was meant to start from January but had to be postponed after Apple suspended production following protests in December by women workers about food poisoning. An Apple spokesperson did not respond to an e-mail query.
Oberoi Realty has hit the top slot in Mumbai's ranking of the top-20 developers in terms of sales in 2021, evicting the Runwal group which was number one last year. The Lodha group which had occupied the top slot three out of five times since 2017 slipped to second place in 2020 and continues to be in the same position in 2021. The Oberoi group was in fifth place in 2019 and fourth place in 2020. This is the first time that it has occupied the number one position. The Runwal group which took the top slot in 2020 is down to third place in 2021.
The Centre's ambitious Rs 6-trillion National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) could fall short of yearly targets for the current fiscal year (FY22) and the next one as well (FY23), partly due to the long gestation period in monetising big-ticket railway infrastructure, Business Standard has learnt from sources in the finance and rail ministries. Officials say the major chunk of railway monetisation will happen from FY24 onwards because leasing some of the infrastructure, like stadiums and dedicated freight corridor, will not happen anytime soon. Rail infra is expected to be the second-biggest contributor to the NMP, with about Rs 1.52 trillion worth of assets to be monetised.
The $8.5 billion TVS Group received final approval for a family resettlement on February 4 from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). It is an arrangement that is noteworthy because unlike many other corporate settlements this one was sorted out amicably and without any open conflicts.
Stocks of Indian companies with exposure to Europe fell on Tuesday amid concerns about the impact on their sales in case the Russia-Ukraine crisis worsens and the US and its allies impose economic sanctions on Russia. While top conglomerates, including Reliance Industries, the Tata group, and Aditya Birla Group, said they did not have any significant exposure to Russia, executives of some of the oil and gas, pharmaceutical, and tea companies said they were monitoring the situation closely as they earned substantial income from the region. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered troops into two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine after announcing that Russia would recognise their independence.
Reliance Industries has put together an aggressive plan to build its drone business which includes expanding manufacturing capacity five-fold, participating in the new drone production linked incentive scheme, and experimenting with limited logistics payloads to deliver goods. The target is to become a key player in the expected $5 billion market in India by the end of the decade. The drone business is being carried out through a Bangalore-based start up, Asteria Aerospace, in which Reliance has taken a majority stake. Asteria is a subsidiary of Jio Platforms Ltd.
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