In the excitement over the allocation of bank licences for the private sector, a new category of licence offered by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last year went almost unnoticed. That was when the RBI consolidated the rules for prepaid payment instruments (PPI), popularly understood as e-wallets or gift cards. In the process, the regulator has fast-forwarded a bottom-up card usage industry in India that is completely different from the world of bank-linked credit and debit cards.
The auspicious day of Akshaya Tritiya has begun on a strong note as jewellers are witnessing good footfalls and being a public holiday on Tuesday, consumers are flocking to the stores early before the temperature soars. "Jewellers across the country have opened their stores early across the country and there is a strong momentum in footfalls since morning. "There has been positive sentiment in the market since the last 10-15 days and we expect it to continue on the day of Akshaya Tritiya.
Kishore Biyani met Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, in Delhi last week and "discussed many things like the macro environment and the prime minister"
E-commerce platform Snapdeal has filed preliminary documents with markets regulator Sebi to raise funds through an initial public offer (IPO), joining the league of internet-led businesses looking to list on domestic stock exchanges. The public issue comprises fresh issuance of equity shares worth Rs 1,250 crore and an offer for sale (OFS) of 3.07 crore equity shares, according to the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP). According to market sources, potential listing could value Snapdeal at about $1.5-1.7 billion.
'I have done enough work for many years.' 'This is a decision that many people at my age need to review.' 'I may become an exit example for people to study.'
Bulk of the medicine sales in the $22-24 billion domestic pharma market happens through offline retail chemists. With the entry of online pharmacies, this space has started to witness a shake-up. Sample this: Dawaa Dost, a Rajasthan based digital health start-up, generates medicine orders from 'kirana' stores and women self-help groups (SHGs) that operate in villages, and then service these orders through its affiliated network of pharmacies. Biddano, another health-tech start-up, has a platform that acts as an aggregator for neighbourhood chemist shops.
Banking technology start-up Zeta is the latest entrant to the unicorn club after raising $250 million in its Series C round from SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Sodexo participated as an additional minority investor in the round. Founded by serial entrepreneur and billionaire Bhavin Thurakia, the startup is now valued at $1.4 billion. It is the 14th company this year to cross the $1 billion valuation mark after Meesho, Cred, Pharmeasy, ShareChat, Moglix and others.
The Indian retail segment has its own uniqueness and the country is one of the most exciting markets globally that is poised to grow to over a trillion dollars by 2025, according to Walmart Inc President and CEO Doug McMillon. Speaking at the Converge@Walmart event, McMillon noted that given the diversity of the Indian market, the company has to "think local and execute locally". "India is such a diverse market, it's not one country in some ways and so we have to think local and execute locally, and it has its own rules, and so, we've got to comply with those rules," he said.
Multiple triggers such as asset sales, pickup in energy cash flows, increased traction in omni-channel retail, and rise in ARPUs could further drive the stock.
Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd has acquired a majority equity stake in digital pharma market place Netmeds for a cash consideration of around Rs 620 crore, Reliance Industries said in a late night statement on Tuesday.
Seven years after it announced Nexa, there's no mistaking the seriousness with which Maruti wants the segment to grow, says Pavan Lall.
Reliance Retail has bought a 25.8 per cent stake in Dunzo, India's leading quick commerce player, for $200 million (around Rs 1,488 crore) as it looks to expand its presence in online grocery delivery business. Dunzo has raised $240 million (about Rs 1,787 crore) in its latest funding round that was led by Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) - the retail arm of Reliance Industries, the two firms said in a statement. Existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital also participated in the funding round.
The companies will jointly launch the Windows 8.1 powered 10.1 inch Hewlett-Packard Omni10 tablet with embedded content from Pearson and Microsoft Office in the higher education space.
The gains came on expectations that the company will post strong growth given its presence in application to peer services and the fast-growing communication platform as a service segment.
'The digital trust level has drastically gone up due to Covid, not only in tier-I and II cities, but also in tier-III, IV and V geographies,'
'The people who stay with us were not born orphans; they have been abandoned.'
As India's online population crosses 450 million, e-commerce ventures are trying to grab a pie of online sales estimated to hit $48 billion by 2020.
To address the shortage of COVID-19 jabs in the country, the government is exploring the possibility of boosting production of vaccines, including identifying manufacturing sites for indigenously developed Covaxin outside India, sources said.
VCs have been especially bullish about India.
Even as regulatory focus has zeroed in on foreign e-commerce giant Amazon, a domestic retail giant has been created almost below the radar in Reliance Retail (RR), one of the most crucial businesses for the group's future. From doorstep delivery of groceries, apparels to branded jewellery, medicines, toys, furniture to high street retailing, RR's presence in the world's fourth largest consumer market is just one part of the story.
India's gold demand recovered during the January-March period to witness a growth of 37 per cent at 140 tonne compared to the same quarter of 2020, due to ease of COVID-related restrictions, pent up demand and softening of prices of the yellow metal, according to the World Gold Council (WGC). The overall gold demand stood at 102 tonne during the first quarter of 2020, as per WGC data. Gold demand in value terms increased by 57 per cent during the first quarter of this calendar year to Rs 58,800 crore compared to Rs 37,580 crore in the corresponding period of 2020.
While Covishield supplies would meet the target of 500 mn doses between August and December, it looks like Covaxin would miss the target of 400 mn unless the partner sites of Bharat Biotech ramp up very rapidly, reports Sohini Das.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed how businesses look at payments. Earlier, fintech companies said when they were talking to merchants, they were not interested in digitisation.
The war is on! Ritwik Sharma finds out what's next for the beauty retailer.
After missing two self-imposed deadlines, billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday announced recalibration of a proposed $15 billion deal to sell 20 per cent stake in its oil refinery and petrochemical business to Saudi Aramco, saying the two firms have agreed to re-evaluate the proposed investment in light of the Indian firm's new energy forays. The stake sale talks, which were first officially revealed in August 2019, are being reset in light of Reliance making forays into new energy business in recent months by investing $10 billion in alternative energy over three years. To pivot to green energy, it has already bought a German maker of photovoltaic solar wafers and signed a deal with a Danish company to manufacture hydrogen electrolysers in India.
Portal to be launched in three months, says Future Group's Kishore Biyani
FirstCry is omni-channel player with presence across desktop, mobile and offline routes offering baby and maternity products in India.
With an epic battle of billionaires for supremacy in one of the world's most prolific markets and a pandemic-propelled surge in online shopping in the background, India's nearly trillion-dollar retail market is hoping to touch 85 per cent of the pre-COVID business in the first half of the New Year. In a year when the COVID-19 carnage ripped apart the retail business, circa 2020 will best go down for the unravelling of the war between Jeff Bezos, the world's wealthiest man, and richest Indian Mukesh Ambani for pre-eminence in the booming market that is estimated to reach $1.3 trillion by 2025. It all started with Ambani's Reliance Industries agreeing in August to buy assets of the nation's second-largest retailer for Rs 24,713 crore, just a year after Bezos' Amazon purchased an indirect stake in the indebted Future Retail.
'Financial independence will help unlock the full potential of these businesses.'
Tax concealment in case of Walmart-owned Flipkart's unit is about Rs 650 crore while the remaining estimation is related to Swiggy.
The Rs 1.5-trillion-a-year industry has ended the year with a 30 per cent fall in sales because after a steady recovery in the festive season, multiple factors dashed its hopes of revival at the end of the year.
Lithium-ion battery would be doubly efficient in near future.
Shoppers Stop returns to its core business after divestments. The retailer plans growth through web and private labels.
India's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India tightened its grip in terms of best selling cars with six of its models featuring in the top-10 list for the just concluded fiscal.
Streamlining its delivery network and shifting focus back to the mass segment - at a time when competitors were struggling to restore normalcy in operations due to the pandemi - aided the firm's revival.
The gems and jewellery industry is staring at a sales washout on Akshaya Tritiya for the second consecutive year as most of the states are under lockdowns due to the raging second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic which has led to negative consumer sentiment, say industry leaders. Akshaya Tritiya, considered as an auspicious day for buying gold and jewellery, falls on May 14 this year. India is the worst-hit among all nations with the second wave of the pandemic, which has been killing more than 3,500 daily and infecting close to 4 lakhs daily for weeks. The massive caseload has nearly paralysed the medical infrastructure.
'The competition between the two is definitely going to be of great interest to the Indian market.'
Future's home retailing interests, including furniture and furnishings, are housed under Praxis Home Retail, which was created in FY18 when the group demerged the business from Future Retail.
Close on the heels of alleged gangrape of a woman law student in Bengaluru, three bar girls were reportedly raped by eight-nine men in Mariappanpalya in Ramanagara district, a senior police official said on Friday.
Addressing an online question and answer session, WHO's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said there would be at least one effective vaccine by 2021 but it would be available 'only in limited quantities'. "Most people agree, it's starting with healthcare workers, and frontline workers, but even there, you need to define which of them are at highest risk, and then the elderly, and so on," Swaminathan said on prioritising who gets the vaccine first.
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