E-commerce firms Amazon, Flipkart, and others are expected to witness blockbuster festival season sales of around $9 billion this year, surpassing pre-pandemic sales of $5 billion in 2019. The pandemic has accelerated the shift to e-commerce, with more consumers shopping online at a higher frequency than last year, observed analysts. This year's festival sales (gross merchandise value or GMV) are expected to grow 30 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to $4.8 billion during the first week of the season and potentially clock over $9-billion GMV during the whole festival month, revealed consulting firm RedSeer's e-commerce festival season report.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday said the entry of big tech firms into the financial sector poses systemic concerns like overleveraging at the borrowers' ends.
Home-grown mobile phone company Lava International has become the first Indian brand to launch 5G smartphones for domestic consumers. The smartphone launched under the brand name 'Agni' has been developed by Lava in India and is getting manufactured at its plant in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. "The purpose of launching Agni is to give Indian consumers the choice of a made in India 5G smartphone for Indians by an Indian company. "We wanted to establish before people that there can be an Indian brand which is technology oriented. "We are second in the world to launch a 5G smartphone on Mediatek Dimensity 810 chipset," Sunil Raina, president & business head, Lava International told PTI on the sidelines of the launch.
The race to get a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) licence for digital payments may get crowded. As many as six consortiums are said to be in the fray to apply for an NUE licence, which would create a for-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-like body for retail payments. A consortium led by Financial Software and Systems (FSS), a leading provider of payment products and payment processor, is in talks and may file an application to the RBI for an NUE license, said sources aware of the development. The other constituents of this group include Indian Bank, Central Bank of India, India Post Payments Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), and a few small finance banks.
After a rather dull April when there were hardly any theatrical or OTT releases, May would be a lot more crowded with a dozen odd movies and web series arriving.
Spy dramas, social comedies, star-studded delights, new seasons of beloved series -- Sukanya Verma lists a fun, fun weekend for you on OTT.
The hour-long episodes lurch from adrenaline-pumping to yawn-inducing, observes Deepa Gahlot.
Second hand goods are catching up with customers on renown shopping websites.
Jubilee's irresistible celebration of cinema and all its good, bad, ugly ways lives up to its title, applauds Sukanya Verma.
'We want to achieve overall profitability, and then we would go for an IPO.'
After a gruelling 24 hours, the PhonePe team has fully restored UPI on the payment platform. The app is up and running again with ICICI Bank as its new partner with all payment instruments enabled.
Several exchanges are facing a cash crunch with committed investment not coming from venture capital funds and trading activity seeing a sharp decline, reports Rajesh Bhayani.
UPI transactions are growing faster, but wallets remain relevant for those without a bank account and seeking cashbacks.
Following a year of pandemic prompted no-show and another of backlash for its staggering lack of representation, the Golden Globes felt more atonement than awards ceremony in its 80th iteration.
The lyrical beauty of the songs, the exceptional frames that bind beauty and poetry make Neelavelicham a near-perfect tribute to the legendary writer who marvelled at imperfection and despised grammar as much as he hated his writing being edited, observes Divya Nair.
Romance, horror, adventure, animation, sushi, Sukanya Verma gives us her OTT recommendations for the week.
The highest domestic package, however, fell 10 per cent
'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,'
Posting a 36-second long video on Instagram showing him flying a kite in Delhi, the world's richest man said, 'Any day is a good day when you get to fly a kite' and hash-tagged it #ThankYouIndia.
I binged on various shows this year -- some for work, some for pleasure, few I couldn't spare time for, others I didn't have access to while some started out fabulously only to fizzle towards the end.
'An 8-week window between theatrical and OTT release is a must!'
With no theatrical releases in the pipeline, the OTT platform is the go-to place for new film and Web show releases.
News of all that's transpired on and off the football field
Their startup investments number 13 so far, compared to 17 deals in 2020.
Middle Earth comes to OTT as does a spate of other offerings. Sukanya Verma gives you your OTT menu.
Glimpses from the Christian Dior Womenswear Fall 2023 show which took place at the Gateway of India, Mumbai.
Digital transaction players are hurriedly drawing up a memorandum to be taken to the central bank in hope of having a few of the guidelines -- such as full Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance in 12 months -- overturned, reports Karan Choudhury
Disney+ Hotstar reported its biggest decline in paid subscribers to date - a fall of 3.8 million subscribers, or 6 per cent of its total - in the October-December period. The drop in numbers came after two warnings by the company that Hotstar's paid subscriber base would shrink as it didn't have streaming rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the 2023-27 media cycle. The IPL would start on April 1 this year and continue till May 28.
Justice, revenge, romance, tears, take your pick from Sukanya Verma's OTT recommendations for the week.
Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook are both a boon and a bane for angel investors, VCs as well as start-ups. If the Big Tech companies get broken up and their powers to acquire get significantly curbed therefore, the whole ecosystem will need to change, says Prosenjit Datta.
Amazon, however, claimed that it is just a service provider and doesn't own goods at any point of sale due to which it is not liable to pay this tax.
Action, animation, drama, documentary, there's plenty to watch on OTT this week. Sukanya Verma makes it easy for you.
Even though each episode is about an hour long, you won't reach even blink: Divya Nair applauds Suzhal: The Vortex.
Streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hotstar offer attractive price points to the Indian audience. Urvi Malvania reports.
'Any entrepreneur who wants to create companies on blockchain will have to move outside India.' 'A ban will also wipe out the entire asset investing class that has built up in India.'
Baby Yoda's latest adventures, spirits of all shapes and sizes, NRIs in vendetta mode, catch all this and more on OTT in Sukanya Verma's weekly recommendations.
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.
You neither get goosebumps nor the adrenaline rush of desh bhakti, which a film like Sardar Udham should give every Indian, observes Syed Firdaus Ashraf.
Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook earned roughly the same in 2013 as in 2012, but lost part of his performance-based stock award during a year in which intense competition and margin pressure bludgeoned the iPhone maker's stock.
The 10-minute flight went up more than 60 miles above Earth. On board the flight was Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, pilot Wally Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Daemen.
