While smart boys like the Ruias of Essar, Ajay Piramal, Max India promoter Analjit Singh laughed all the way to the bank, the Tatas, Anil Ambani, Malaysian tycoon T Ananda Krishna of Maxis (which invested in Aircel), Sistema, and Norway's Telenor burnt their fingers, notes Surajeet Das Gupta.
While green shoots are beginning to emerge, with June sales rebounding to pre-Covid levels thanks to a rural revival, most FMCG chief executives have voiced concerns about localised lockdowns that began in July and have extended into August in some states.
It has invested $2 billion and spent $200 million on its R&D centre in Bengaluru, the largest such centre outside China where some core technologies are under development.
in the last three months, brands such as Tata Starbucks, KFC, and Pizza Hut have launched drive-through or kerb-side delivery services at their restaurants to catch consumers nervous about dining in.
Two of Apple Inc's global vendors -- Wistron and Foxconn (through Han Hoi), which already manufacture Apple phones in India -- and a third entity, Pegatron, which will be setting up a new plant, have applied to the government to be eligible under the PLI scheme for large-scale electronics manufacturers.
Under these rules, telecom gear makers have to share their source codes and get their equipment tested by third-party labs accredited to the government.
'That it is happening in the second half of the year, during the festive season, will only encourage many to step up advertising.'
India's telecom sector has been through dizzying peaks, troughs, policy U-turns, court battles, brutal competition, and daily controversies. India could go back to a private sector duopoly with just Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel surviving the mayhem. The third player, Vodafone Idea, could be history.
Companies say that unlike in the US and other countries, in India the high cost of rentals and lower ticket price makes it unviable to run an operation without half the seats available for sale.
Chingari, Roposo, Khabri and Trell are seeing huge traction as people are looking at options to earn incentives from home. Music streaming app Gaana, which is strongly placed in the market with 150 million users, recently opened up its short video platform for subscribers.
While JioMart is doing 250,000 orders per day, BigBasket and Amazon pantry are doing 220,000 and 150,000 orders, respectively.
Reliance is leveraging the technological change of building a virtualised 5G network which would see the current hardware-dependent networks shift to software-centric platforms.
Apart from digital advertising revenue, both companies want to reach out to the 'next billion' Indian customers. After all, around half of the 1.3 billion population is still not on the net and this represents a challenge as well as an opportunity.
Overall, the domestic FMCG market bounced back to levels of 98 in June compared with 75 in May and 101 in March before the nationwide lockdown was announced. The pre-Covid March index for foods was 103, and for non-foods, it was 99.
According to software company Mavernir, the new virtualised networks would lead to a saving of 40 per cent in capex and 34 per cent in terms of lower operations cost for operators.
Beside RIL's Jio Switch and Jio Browser, smaller Indian app companies who have been overwhelmed by TikTok are again seeing a big rush - even though till the second week of June they might not have been even listed in the top 100 apps in the country.
Rajiv Suri's resignation is effective August 25, the company said in a stock exchange filing. Suri quit for personal reasons and would pursue a career outside India, it added.
The Indian authorities feared that these apps were transferring consumer data to locations outside the country, especially China, in an unauthorised and surreptitious manner. With servers in India, the data of local consumers would be stored in the country.
We are adapting to the situation by innovating new delivery modelss, launching brand campaigns that are impactful in the current context and closely monitoring changes in consumer buying behaviour, he said.
For a product initially positioned as a "closet mate" which could help improve a woman's marital prospects, HUL Chairman Sanjiv Mehta says the communication now is all about women's empowerment.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances