The equity cult has grown at a rapid pace in India in the last few years, with retail investors latching on to the stock markets like never before. At 126.6 million, the number of dematerialised (demat) accounts, where investors hold their securities in electronic form for trading purposes, are at record high levels. The growth rate, on an annualised basis, stood at 27 per cent in 2022-2023, up from barely 6 per cent a decade ago.
India's Internet economy has two choices: An immediate $30 billion Sale-and-Leaseback or a $3 trillion value harvesting over decades, observes Vibhu Arya.
Not only is the number of native language users set to grow faster than English users over the next five years, these users are more likely to lead a more active digital life. Arundhuti Dasgupta & Urvi Malvania find out how brands are rethinking digital marketing plans to accommodate this.
Modi said New Delhi has emphasised on dialogue and diplomacy along with restraint to deal with the situation arising out of the Hamas-Israel conflict.
The number of internet users in rural India increased 18 percent last year, faster than growth in urban areas and continuing a trend that started two years ago. Internet users in urban India increased 5 percent in 2021. Rural India has 351 million users, or 37 percent of people there, according to a report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and data analytics company KANTAR.
The stock of the country's largest listed oral care company -- Colgate-Palmolive (India) Ltd is up 18 per cent over the past month. The gains were led by better than expected June quarter (Q1) performance of the 2023-24 financial year (FY24) and growth revival expectations of the oral care category. The company's volume growth is pegged at 5-8 per cent in Q1FY24. This is the second consecutive quarter of volume growth.
Apple will next week open its first retail store in India, in signs of importance the iPhone manufacturer attaches to the world's fastest growing smartphones market. The company will open its first official store in Mumbai on April 18 and the second in Delhi on April 20. The company at present sells its products in India through exclusive Apple Premium Reseller (APR) stores, large format retail chains like Reliance Digital, Croma etc, mutli-brand retail stores and through e-commerce platforms.
India's second largest IT services company Infosys on Thursday reported a 3.1 per cent year-on-year rise in net profit to Rs 6,215 crore for the September 2023 quarter. The earnings (before minority interest) of the Bengaluru-based company stood at Rs 6,026 crore in the year-ago period. The company - which competes in the IT services market with TCS, Wipro, HCL Technologies and others - saw its revenue rising 6.7 per cent to Rs 38,994 crore for the just-ended September quarter.
WhatsApp India head Abhijit Bose and Meta's public policy head Rajiv Aggarwal have resigned from their positions, social media major Meta said on Tuesday. The development comes within a week of Meta announcing 11,000 lay-offs across the globe. The company has given charge of Meta India Public Policy to Shivnath Thukral who is currently serving as Director of WhatsApp Public Policy in India.
Following a strong performance in the 2022-23 January-March quarter, publicly listed paint industry giants displayed a mixed performance in the 2023-24 (FY24) April-June quarter. While Berger Paints India outperformed its peers and reported results in line with expectations, market leader Asian Paints and Kansai Nerolac Paints fell slightly short of expectations.
Notwithstanding the fact that the country's pharmaceutical (pharma) pricing regulator has allowed a 12 per cent price increase for medicines listed under the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) in 2023, analysts and industry insiders predict that the overall domestic pharma industry will only witness a price hike of 5-6 per cent. This is attributed to higher competitive intensity in the market. Krishnakumar V, executive director and chief operating officer (CEO) of Eris Lifesciences, a domestic-focused pharma company, noted that the NLEM segment experienced growth suppression of around 150 basis points due to price reductions during the January to July period this year.
'The economy needs to deliver the expected 7.5% growth for the markets to deliver better than single digit returns.' 'Any disappointment in growth can see the markets correcting downwards.'
The BBC confirmed on Monday that it will go ahead to close down the Asian Network radio station, which is targeted at people with origins in the Indian sub-continent, by the end of 2011. The BBC Trust, which sets the course for the functioning of the world service, confirmed the proposal by the BBC director general Mark Thompson to shut down the radio station. It has published its initial conclusions on how the corporation can make the transition to a fully digital future.
The BBC Trust, which sets the course for the functioning of the world service, confirmed the proposal by the BBC director general Mark Thompson to shut down the radio station.
rediffGURU Dev Ashish answers your personal finance and mutual fund queries.
Unilever completed one of the largest cloud migrations in the consumer goods industry, with a little help from Accenture and Microsoft, and has become a cloud-only enterprise. Accenture and Microsoft, together with their joint venture, Avanade, worked with Unilever to deliver the transformation in 18 months with minimal disruption to business operations, Accenture said in a release. The release added that it has not only helped ensure and optimise operations for Unilever but also provides a platform to drive innovation and growth.
The headline for corporate profit growth has been very encouraging in the July-September quarter (Q2) of 2023-24 (FY24), with the combined net profit of listed companies up by 38 per cent year-on-year. However, the earnings distribution has been very lopsided, with most of the growth coming from public-sector oil-marketing companies (OMCs), banks, non-bank lenders, automobile (auto) companies, and cement producers. By comparison, companies from information technology services, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), retail, and consumer durables were disappointed, experiencing a sharp slowdown in net sales growth and a relatively muted increase in reported net profit.
Wipro is betting on artificial intelligence (AI) and Cloud computing to earn more from its biggest contributor - the banking, financial services & insurance (BFSI) sector - which brought in 35 per cent of the revenue in FY23. The Bengaluru-headquartered firm also expects its consultancy arm Capco to aid in its vision. "Over the past few years, we have made significant investments in the BFSI sector and have improved our talent, capabilities, and processes in this space - both through organic investments and with the addition of Capco," Suzanne Dann, Wipro's chief executive officer for Americas 2 said.
In its chargesheet filed before a special court in New Delhi, the CBI has named Raghuvanshi and Pathak as accused in the alleged violation of the Official Secrets Act and related offences, they said.
One looks upon the coming new year with foreboding as current wars in Ukraine and Gaza spill over and escalate and new ones erupt in incipient fault lines across the world, notes former foreign secretary Shyam Saran.
It may not be an exaggeration to say that in the next three years, in India itself a million jobs or more might be at risk due to automation. How we leverage its benefits will determine our fate in the digital era.
According to reports, by last year, the company has helped its customers save 15 per cent on costs -- around 5-6 per cent on fuel and 15 per cent on fleet utilisation through digital measures.
'As our per capita income increases and various demographic segments emerge, the need for various kinds of protection and risk covers will become even more explicit.'
While the RBI's guidelines aim to streamline the loan closure process, borrowers must remain proactive.
While the tax treatment does legitimise past crypto transactions, there is a possibility that any, or all, private cryptocurrencies will be banned in future.
The growth in personal loans for fintech major Paytm may remain muted in the future and not replicate a three-digit year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth that it recorded in the previous years, a person familiar with the matter said. Sources said the personal loans book may grow in the range of 30 to 40 per cent Y-o-Y on its current base. On a quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) basis, the number of personal loans the Noida-based fintech company disbursed has dropped 20 per cent from 0.3 million in the first quarter of this financial year (Q1FY24) to 0.24 million in Q2FY24, according to regulatory filings.
IT major TCS said 2014-15 will be better than the ongoing fiscal on account of uptick in client spending in the US and Europe and growth in demand for technologies like cloud, mobility and Big Data.
For that to happen, Moitra's much followed speeches should be heard outside Parliament so that the PR spins of the ruling dispensation are countered with informed debate, argues Shyam G Menon.
T E Narasimhan/Business Standard reports from Chennai on how the Future group plans to shore up its small store network in the South.
'Considering Pai is putting his own personal money in Byju's, stakeholders in the company can look forward to more governance and transparency.'
Simplilearn said the pandemic had accelerated demand for skills in areas such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data science and cybersecurity.
The government on Wednesday withdrew the Personal Data Protection Bill from Lok Sabha and said it will come out with a 'set of fresh legislations' that will fit into the comprehensive legal framework.
The silver lining for India's presidency is likely to be the support by almost all G20 countries to its proposal to include the African Union as a permanent member of the bloc that has emerged as perhaps the most influential multilateral forum after the United Nations.
American writer HP Lovecraft famously said that the oldest and strongest of fears is the fear of the unknown. For present-day advertisers and celebrities, this fear is showing up in the response they receive from social media to their brand communication. This is something AU Small Finance Bank and online food delivery platform Zomato recently experienced with their advertisements.
FIH president Tayyab Ikram asserted that the dynamics of the sport would not be compromised at any cost when they try out the proposed penalty corner rule.
India has already become the world's fifth largest economy in the 75th year of Independence and will reach the $3.5 trillion mark by end-March, said the Economic Survey tabled in Parliament on Tuesday. In real terms, the economy is expected to grow at 7 per cent for the year ending March 2023. This follows an 8.7 per cent growth in the previous financial year.
Look at the sanctioned plan to know the exact carpet area you will get and pay a law firm to conduct a thorough title check.
India is likely to become a $40 trillion economy by 2047 -- a 13-fold jump from its current size -- driven primarily by a clean energy revolution and digitalisation, billionaire Mukesh Ambani said on Tuesday. Ambani's estimate for the Indian economy, currently the fifth largest in the world behind only the US, China, Japan and Germany, is more optimistic than Asia's richest man Gautam Adani, who last week stated that India will become a $30 trillion economy by 2050 on back of rising consumption and socio-economic reforms. "From a 3 trillion-dollar economy, India will grow to become a 40 trillion-dollar economy by 2047, ranking among the top three economies of the world," Ambani said at the 10th convocation of Pandit Deendayal Energy University in Gandhinagar.
Leading media firms Zee Entertainment and Sony Pictures on Wednesday said they have received in-principle approval for a merger that will combine both companies' linear networks, digital assets, production operations and programme libraries.
Meet the youngsters who rule India's social media.
