Analyst are cautious about the performance of IT services sector from January to March quarter (Q4) of FY24 and the first half (H1) of FY25. While the Bloomberg consensus on revenue implies the market is expecting 2-3 per cent growth on a quarter-on-quarter (Q-o-Q) basis for the IT majors through FY25, the H1FY25 is likely to see even flatter returns, and Q4FY24 is likely to be poor. There is likely to be some recovery in the second half (H2FY25) but even so, there's a chance that the market will be overall disappointed.
The domestic technology industry's revenue is projected to grow 3.8 per cent to $254 billion this fiscal, industry body Nasscom said on Friday and highlighted creation of 60,000 more jobs during this period. The industry had clocked a revenue of $244.6 billion in the same period last year, according to Nasscom's annual strategic review report. Excluding hardware, the revenue is expected to touch $199 billion, a growth of 3.3 per cent over FY23, as per the report.
Women account for 35 per cent of the 860,000 people employed in startups in 2022, compared to 19 per cent in the corporate sector.
'We're putting a lot of focus on GenAI developers and people who can really do all the architecture and programming.'
Each bottle of pickle that leaves FarmDidi, headed to a consumer, has a little kahani behind it -- it's linked to the tale of a life, the life of a simple, striving village woman who created it, and that's what gives Manjari Sharma satisfaction and happiness.
'We want to make sustainability affordable.' 'We tell everyone, don't just recycle, Craste it!'
'The tie-up with Serum Institute Life Sciences brings to the table their strengths in manufacturing and also their vaccine portfolio.'
'The private sector will look to the budget to check whether there are any headwinds or tailwinds.'
India's largest listed pharmaceutical (pharma) company - Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (Sun Pharma) - is expected to maintain its outperformance vis--vis the sector's, as its multiple bets on specialty products, improving product mix, recent acquisitions, and branded business are finding favour with brokerages. While it has gained 7 per cent over the past year, the Nifty Pharma Index is down 13.6 per cent. Its outperformance over two years has been fairly evident, with the market leader gaining 66 per cent to Nifty Pharma's minus 1.4 per cent.
'While every year presents new challenges, it also provides opportunities for better growth and performance.'
'Our expectations are that we will be able to double our market share from 14-15 per cent currently to around 30 per cent by the end of the financial year.'
Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the government has asked Apple two questions: whether their devices are safe, and if so the reason for the alert was sent to the Opposition members.
The government on Thursday imposed import restrictions on laptops, tablets, all-in-one personal computers, ultra small form factor computers, and servers with immediate effect. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in a notification said exemption from import licensing is provided up to 20 items per consignment for R&D, testing, benchmarking and evaluation, repair and return and product development purposes.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said the arrest of Kurulkar is a "very serious matter" and alleged that it exposes the "anti-national face" of the RSS.
Within six months, outlets carrying Vicks jumped from 60,000 pharmacies to 750,000 general stores. The trade boycott collapsed. Consumers were happy, finding Vicks now at every street corner. A fascinating excerpt from Gurcharan Das's Another Sort of Freedom.
'From our survey we found that there was a problem in the agricultural sector and drones could solve the problem.'
The biggest spender was Tata Motors, with Rs 4,224.6 crore assigned under the R&D head.
Existing optimism about the capital goods sector has been enhanced by the Assembly election results, which were favourable for the BJP. The prospects of political continuity led to renewed interest in the sector. There are demand-supply gaps, especially in power, and visibility of improved pricing and strong order flows, including from private enterprises.
IT services firm Wipro has launched an artificial intelligence (AI)-first ecosystem that will put the technology in every platform, tool, and solution it uses and offers to clients. Along with the launch of Wipro ai360, the company committed to invest $1 billion to advance AI capabilities in the next three years. Wipro ai360, fuelled by this new investment, will help in a new era of value, productivity, and commercial opportunities through the application of AI and generative AI, said the company.
Ratan Tata-promoted Electrodrive Powertrain Solutions or Electra EV has raised USD 25 million in equity capital from GEF Capital for a minority stake. The Tata Group patriarch set up Electra EV in 2017 and the company designs, manufactures and supplies EV powertrains systems across passenger and commercial vehicle segments. It also has products for the agriculture and off-highway segments.
Rising penetration of trade generic medicines is eating into the value growth of the domestic pharmaceutical market, showed a recent analysis. According to a Kotak Institutional Equities analysis, 70-110 basis points (bps) annual dent is expected from trade generics and Jan Aushadhi on Indian Pharma Market (IPM) growth at least until FY27-28 (see chart). Trade generic medicines are those that are not pushed into the market through doctor promotions.
'Will make sure that we create value. We will again look for organic and inorganic opportunities.'
China has consistently spent more than 2% of GDP on R&D while India's expenditure on R&D has stagnated around 0.7% of GDP. Can our government shore up resources so that we hit the R&D expenditure target of 2% of GDP set out by the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy of 2013, asks Chidambaran G Iyer, Senior Fellow, Pahle India Foundation.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited on Wednesday handed over the first LCA Tejas twin-seater aircraft to the Indian Air Force.
The Vivad Se Vishwas scheme provides for settlement of disputed tax, disputed interests, disputed penalty or disputed fees in relation to an assessment or reassessment order on payment of 100 per cent of the disputed tax and 25 per cent of the disputed penalty or interest or fee.
French carmaker Citroen will launch its C3 Aircross Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) in India by October, and is betting big on exports from India to markets like South Africa, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and Nepal, a top company executive told Business Standard. Citroen, which sold 6,000 units through Citron C3 and C5 Aircross SUV, is likely to double its sales during the current year, as it has already sold 6,000 units of Citron C3 and eC3 electric vehicles during the first six months. "We are going to start bookings for the C3 Aircross SUV in September and launch it in October. Price will be at the heart of the midsize SUV market," said Saurabh Vatsa, Citroen India branch head.
This is a good opportunity for long-term investors to pick quality small and midcap stocks at reasonable valuations.
'Midcap and smallcap indices are trading in the expensive zone.'
One possible way of accelerating National Education Policy's outcome is to invite 10,000 retired highly accomplished teachers from the developed world and from India in STEM areas to create 2,500 "Train the Teacher" colleges in the country's 28 states and eight union territories, Murthy said.
'We are calling companies to set up assembly plants for mobile phones while all the components are imported.' 'Only the last turn of the screwdriver is done here. And you call it self-reliance, Atmanirbharta, etc.' 'Unless you invest in research, you will not climb up the ladder. But this government is happy getting sub-contract work.'
'After 2011-2012, both our investment rate and savings savings rate have declined. 'Correspondingly, the savings rate in the economy as percentage of GDP, also has come down.'
'However, we have seen weakness in our active pharmaceutical ingredients business.'
With the fate of the Development Enterprise and Services Hub (DESH) Bill in limbo, the commerce department is working towards tweaking some rules under the existing special economic zone (SEZ) law to allow use of unutilised spaces in IT/ITES for non-SEZ purposes. The move, when implemented, will free-up the land area that is not in demand through partial de-notification of certain floors or buildings, thereby allowing easier exit. "The department of commerce is discussing the matter with the revenue department before making changes in the Special Economic Zone Act, 2005," a person aware of the matter
The government on Tuesday proposed to extend the period of incorporation of eligible startups by one more year till March 31, 2023 for providing tax incentives, a move aimed at encouraging budding entrepreneurs. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech said startups have emerged as drivers of growth for the economy and over the past few years, the country has seen a manifold increase in successful startups. Eligible startups established before March 31, 2022 had been provided a tax incentive for three consecutive years out of ten years from incorporation.
For Paris-headquartered IT services major Capgemini, India has always been the backbone of its services delivery for its global clients, but the company is focused on driving more value from India as it gears up its engineering research and development (R&D) presence worldwide with its acquisition of Altran Technologies. The company, which has about 149,000 employees in India, is looking to hire 60,000 associates this year. Of them, 30,000 will be recruits from campuses and the rest lateral entrants. For Ashwin Yardi, chief executive officer India, Capgemini, the focus is to make sure that the India unit is aligned with the global plans of repositioning the company as a hub of engineering R&D, operational technology, and IT.
'AI is not a new thing for us. We started our AI journey in 2015.'
The new hires will work in cutting-edge domains of artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT, natural language processing, camera technology and 5G networks.
After disappointing guidances in the first quarter (Apr-Jun) of the 2023-24 financial year (Q1FY24) and valuation downgrades, the Indian IT sector could see some positive repricing as the bad news for IT maybe easing in Q2FY24. A key negative factor was weaker demand from the US financial sector and from North America in general. The latest GDP (gross domestic product) estimates and sector-specific news suggest that the demand situation may not be quite so bad with a gradual recovery in tech spending in Q2.
The migration of domestically developed intellectual property to foreign corporations within India reflects an anomaly in the demand pattern of the country's job market, points out Kanika Datta.
Companies need to provide 90-95 per cent of what Europe, US, Japan, Korea may give and for that, you have to spend this kind of money: Pawan Goenka.