India has now around one billion mobile subscribers, he added.
'We have already sanctioned loans worth over Rs 3,000 crore to around 120,000 customers.'
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has approved the resolution plan of Twin Star Technologies -- a promoter entity of the Vedanta Resources group -- for the Videocon group. But it has pointed out that the successful resolution applicant is "paying almost nothing" as the amount offered is only 4.15 per cent of total outstanding claim. It noted the hair cut for all the creditors is 95.85 per cent and suggested to both committee of creditors (CoC) and the successful applicant an increase in the payout.
Refuting the allegations of TRAI that the telecom service providers are making huge gains in the sector, the firms had said they have been investing hugely on the infrastructure.
India's IT and business services market is expected to grow 5.4 per cent annually to reach $13 billion by December this year, research firm IDC said. The segment grew 5.3 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) in January-June (H1) 2020 period as compared to 8.9 per cent growth in H1 2019, IDC said in a report. Of the IT and business services market, the IT services market contributed 77.4 per cent in H1 2020, growing 5.9 per cent y-o-y as compared to 9.3 per cent growth in the year-ago period.
The total value of India's top 100 brands has increased by 2 per cent, from $162.1 billion in 2020 to $164.9 billion in 2021, according to the latest Brand Finance India 100 2021 report. This uplift in brand value over the course of the first year of the pandemic is an impressive feat given the global economic crisis following the implementation of national lockdowns in March 2020, when business activity was brought to a halt, affecting both production and consumption. Among the brands that came on the top of the list include Tata Group, Reliance Industries, and Mahindra Group.
Record equity divestment by the Reliance Group in its telecom and retail businesses garnering around $23 billion revved up the deal street in 2020, which otherwise would have gone down as one of the dullest on record, and dealmakers are seeing sunnier days in 2021 given the large scope for consolidation in a slew of sectors ravaged by the pandemic. With Jio Platforms alone garnering over $16 billion (Rs 1,18,318 crore) by selling 25.24 per cent stake and Reliance Retail notching up $6.4 billion (Rs 47,265 crore) by divesting around 9 per cent shareholding, the deal street signed off with $85 billion in the deal kitty across 1,270 transactions. This is higher by about 10 per cent over 2019. What is significant is that over a third of the total deal value came from Reliance transactions, say investment bankers.
Together, AT&T and TechM aim to improve the agility in rolling out and supporting networks of the future, while improving returns on investment through technology-led transformation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said production linked incentive (PLI) scheme, which is aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing and exports, is expected to increase the country's production by $520 billion in the next five years. Addressing a webinar on PLI scheme, organised by Department of Industry and International Trade (DPIIT) and NITI Aayog, through video conference, Modi said the government is continuously carrying out reforms to boost domestic manufacturing. In this year's Budget, about Rs 2 lakh crore was earmarked for the PLI scheme for the next five years and "there is an expectation that the scheme would result in increasing the production by about $520 billion in the next five years", he said. He added that there is also an expectation that the current workforce in the sectors, which will avail the benefits of the PLI scheme, will be doubled and job creation will also increase.
Tier-II and tier-III towns have a reason to rejoice.
Don't expect the synthetic stones to surpass natural ones anytime soon because the world's biggest miners of diamonds aren't looking to get into man-made diamonds.
Nifty crosses 9,750-mark; Bharti Airtel, TCS, Wipro, Lupin and Coal India gained the most on BSE Sensex
The new entity will continue to work on technologies in areas like healthcare and education, while also looking at next-gen competencies like artificial intelligence, Blockchain, virtual and augmented reality, among others.
'It is in electronics that the gap between where we are and where we need to be is most obvious and most persistent.' 'It is not only a national security issue, but also a commercial issue,' argues Rajeev Srinivasan.
India's largest telecom operator in terms of subscriber numbers has been struggling to raise its share of subscribers in the market for fourth-generation technology services.
Saudi Aramco chairman and head of the Kingdom's cash-rich wealth fund PIF Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan will join the board of Reliance Industries Ltd as an independent director in a precursor to a $15 billion deal. Reliance chairman and Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani, who had two years back disclosed the talks to sell a 20 per cent stake in the company's oil-to-chemical unit to Saudi Aramco, announced the appointment of Al-Rumayyan at the company's annual meeting of shareholders. Harvard educated Al-Rumayyan, 51, will replace Yogendra P Trivedi, 92, who has expressed a desire to retire, Ambani said. On the sale of a 20 per cent stake in the O2C business, he said the deal is likely to conclude this year.
Make no mistake, Reliance's entry into Indian e-commerce cannot be taken lightly. It is akin to a combine of AT&T and Wal-Mart challenging Amazon on its home turf, says Shailesh Dobhal.
The Telecom Commission, which is the highest decision making authority within the Department of Telecommunications, on Wednesday, accepted the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on full-fledged mobile number portability.
The freebies are now over, but Jio will need to notch up subscriber numbers and margins to prove its sceptics wrong.
India is looking at 5G technology as a major opportunity in terms of offering services tailored for rural India like telehealth, tele-education and bandwidth-heavy applications
While everybody is talking about the vast potential of 5G, the uptake of such services in India depends on operators getting around 100 Mhz 5G spectrum. At the reserve price proposed by Trai, getting this spectrum will cost a telco around Rs 490 billion. Which amount could be difficult for operators to mop up, given the financial stress they are undergoing, says Kiran Rathee.
Its trajectory in telecom is well known but now it is pushing for a similar leap into the ranks of the top players in its other businesses: media and entertainment, e-commerce, a series of online businesses ranging from health to education, and retail.
While the company will gain from enhanced scale and size following the merger with Mahindra Satyam, its ability to bag large deals will be a key growth driver.
With the economy gaining pace and large deals back on the table, chief executive officers (CEOs) of tech companies believe global tech spending will witness growth this year. According to CEO Survey by Nasscom, about 71 per cent chief executives expect global spend to grow over 4 per cent. The figure is significantly higher than the previous two years - 41 per cent and 59 per cent in 2019 and 2020, respectively. The survey also said the recovery in global tech spending will be led by the digital segment.
Whether one likes it or not, services constitute the value-addition sector that the country has to build on, using its comparative advantage in infotech and related skills, suggests T N Ninan.
It, however, remains to be seen how much money Softbank actually puts in, what the implied equity valuation is and if the e-commerce venture is included in the Jio entity.
Reliance Industries, which holds pan-India 4G telecom spectrum for data services, has applied for a licence to offer mobile telephony.
The number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 1,183.15 million at the end of May to 1,186.63 million at the end of June.
In the year 2020 to date, these funds deployed capital worth a record $14.8 billion in India, which is nearly three times more than what they have put in China - $4.5 billion.
Mobile Number Portability (MNP) has crossed a landmark figure of 100 million with 11 per cent of the total mobile subscribers exercising this facility till date.
The earnings are, however, expected to be down around 2 per cent on a sequential basis due to pent-up demand getting exhausted and the adverse impact of rising metals and energy prices on consumer goods and manufacturing companies.
Till now the telecom companies can share only passive infrastructure such as towers. In active infrastructure the players would be able to share antenna and mobile exchanges among others.
India's economy could prove to be the "most resilient" in the subregion of South and South-West Asia over the long term, according to a report by the UN, which says a positive but lower economic growth post COVID-19 pandemic and the country's large market will continue to attract investments. The report titled 'Foreign Direct Investment Trends And Outlook In Asia And The Pacific 2020/2021', and compiled by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), stated that inward FDI flows to South and South-West Asia slightly decreased by 2 per cent in 2019, from $67 billion in 2018 to $66 billion in 2019. The growth, however, was mainly driven by India, which accounted for 77 per cent of the total inflows to the subregion and received $51 billion in 2019, up 20 per cent from the previous year.
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.
However, that could only be for sectors where 100 per cent FDI is allowed under the automatic route and pose no risk to national security.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries has signed a pact to invest an undisclosed amount in a giant petrochemical hub being built in the UAE. The oil-to-telecom conglomerate will join the recently-formed Ta'ziz joint venture of Abu Dhabi state energy giant Adnoc and state holding company ADQ for developing the Ruwais Derivatives Park in western Abu Dhabi. A company statement said an agreement has been signed for Reliance to invest in the project but did not give details. Unconfirmed reports put the investment at about $1.5 billion.
Indian telecom operators came out in open support of Chinese equipment makers, saying the government cannot deprive Indian consumers of the cutting-edge technology which these companies offer by denying security clearance to them.
Bharti Global is planning to put up more satellites and has set a stiff deadline to launch commercial Internet services by October in the UK, Alaska, northern Russia and northern Europe.
The world's biggest social network Facebook wants to connect more people to internet in India which accounts for the third largest online user base globally after China and the US but has a very low internet penetration growth rate.
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