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.
Following a gap of several months, global brands like Walmart have started lifting orders from Tiruppur's garment makers, leading to growth in knitwear exports in January after five months. Knitwear exports from Tiruppur increased 1.5 per cent in dollar terms and 11.6 per cent in rupee terms in January. According to the Tiruppur Exporters' Association (TEA), global majors have started placing more orders from the region.
Layoffs, corporate restructuring, governance and most importantly profitability: The 14 Indian startups that plan IPOs this year are pulling out all the stops to ensure successful market debuts.
Ajit Balakrishnan offers a thinking man's guide to the state of ecom in a nation of shopkeepers.
'The World Cup alone is expected to create an additional 100,000 jobs, most of which will comprise gig workers in the delivery space, transportation, hospitality and event management.'
'We want to achieve overall profitability, and then we would go for an IPO.'
'For all of us at Amazon, it is 'Bharat first'.' 'We are keeping the Indian customer at the centre of what we are doing.'
WhatsApp's advantage is that it is the first app millions of Indian check first thing in the morning and innumerable times during the day and night.
PhonePe said on Tuesday it has launched a service that will allow the fintech firm's Indian users traveling abroad to pay foreign merchants using Unified Payments Interface (UPI). 'UPI international' supports merchant outlets in UAE, Singapore, Mauritius, Nepal and Bhutan that have a local QR (quick response) code. Users will be able to make direct payments in a foreign currency from their Indian bank, like they do with international debit cards.
Jack Ma who had five years ago said he was inspired and excited by "Make in India" possibly understood the essence of the signature campaign better than some others and decided to stay away from India other than as an investor, says Nivedita Mookerji.
The much-talked-about sale of Ambuja Cement and ACC by Holcim Group will see the single-biggest outflow of foreign capital from the country if the two cement firms are acquired by Indian investors. The deal, valued at nearly $10.35 billion, will put in the shade Cairn Energy Plc's exit from India in 2010, when it sold Cairn India to Vedanta Group for $4.48 billion. According to various reports, big business groups such as AV Birla, JSW Group, and Adani Group are in the fray to acquire Holcim's assets in India.
Walmart-owned Flipkart on Thursday said the company is in compliance with Indian laws, including FDI regulations, and will cooperate with the Enforcement Directorate on the notice sent to the e-commerce major. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a show cause notice of Rs 10,600 crore to Flipkart and its promoters for alleged violation of the foreign exchange law, official sources said on Thursday. When contacted, Flipkart said it is in compliance with Indian laws and regulations, including FDI regulations.
Flipkart Group on Monday said it has raised $3.6 billion (about Rs 26,805.6 crore) in funding led by GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and Walmart, valuing the e-commerce giant at $37.6 billion. The company, which competes with Amazon, Reliance Industries' JioMart and others in the burgeoning Indian e-commerce market, said it will continue to make deeper investments across people, technology, supply chain and infrastructure to address the requirements of a rapidly growing consumer base in the country. The current funding round has also seen participation from sovereign funds DisruptAD, Qatar Investment Authority, Khazanah Nasional Berhad as well as marquee investors Tencent, Willoughby Capital, Antara Capital, Franklin Templeton and Tiger Global.
Decision-making is stretched because of differences in views between ministries.
Policy constraints may prevent many of the global retail giants from reaching their full potential.There are too many restrictions right now in the sector and policy makers lack clarity.
Here's a list of allegations of corporate governance failure by MNCs in India.
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.
While global competitors Amazon and Walmart are looking to explore B2B online in India, traditional Indian retailers like the Future group and Reliance Retail and e-commerce players such as Snapdeal and Flipkart have no immediate plans in this area.
Walmart-owned Flipkart will undertake a buyback employee stock options worth about Rs 600 crore, according to sources Earlier in the day, Flipkart announced raising $3.6 billion (about Rs 26,805.6 crore) in funding from a clutch of investors that valued the e-commerce major at $37.6 billion (about Rs 2.79 lakh crore). In an e-mail to employees, Flipkart group chief executive officer Kalyan Krishnamurthy lauded the critical role played by the staff in reaching this milestone.
However, the countries did not take up the issue of proposed withdrawal of export incentives by the US to Indian exporters under Generalized System of Preference.
Last November, a lawyer for Future Retail Limited (FRL) told Delhi high court that Amazon is interfering with its lawful business and thousands may lose their jobs and FRL may go bankrupt. Senior advocate Harish Salve, who appeared for FRL, likened Amazon to East India Company. Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, who represented Amazon, told the Future counsel to keep the "East India Company" rhetoric aside, as Amazon has invested $6.5 billion all over India and created 900,000 jobs. This drama played out in the case in which Amazon has challenged Future's $3.4-billion deal with Reliance, alleging the retailer's deal breached an agreement with the American e-commerce firm.
Amazon India is waiting for clarifications from the government on several aspects of the latest FDI guidelines to be able to carry on with business in the country. Sources said, no new investment is likely till at least the second half of 2019.
Physical format stores are here to stay.
The latest infusion brings the total capital pumped into Amazon's e-commerce business in India to Rs 22,390 crore
In January, Visa's chief executive officer, Al Kelly, said during an earnings call that "there's been a burst of the balloon in valuations in the fintech world". Noting that the trend of lower valuations "is a helpful characteristic of the current environment", he added: "We will look for capabilities and management teams that will bring more value to Visa than we can bring ourselves." Data from KPMG's Pulse of Fintech H2'22 shows that global fintech investment - via mergers and acquisitions (M&As), private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) firms - at $164.1 billion in 2022, was down 31 per cent over the year before. Indian fintechs held up better during this timeframe, attracting $6 billion, or a fall of 24 per cent.
Traders' body CAIT on Thursday urged the government to impose a ban on Amazon's e-commerce portal and its operations in India, accusing the global e-tailing giant of indulging in predatory pricing, deep discounting and inventory control. Addressing a press conference, CAIT secretary-general Praveen Khandelwal demanded an "immediate ban on Amazon's portal and its operations in India" and an investigation against the company in a time-bound manner. He also urged the government to probe the business practices of Amazon and Flipkart. However, responding to the allegations, both Amazon and Flipkart said they remain compliant with Indian laws.
The retailer has registered a new company called 'Wal-Mart India Private Ltd' in the country, according to the data available with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
The Reserve Bank has rejected applications of Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal-backed company Chaitanya India Fin Credit Private Limited, and five others for setting up banks as these were "not found" suitable, an official statement said on Tuesday. The RBI in a statement said the examination of six applications has now been completed as per the procedure laid down under the guidelines. "Based on the assessment of the applications, (six) applicants were not found suitable for granting of in-principle approval to set up banks," it said.
The report, however, did not include sales of Flipkart's subsidiaries Myntra and Jabong.
Apple's online launch is a symbol of success for FDI in single-brand retail, though there's no indication of how much the Silicon Valley major would invest in the country.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd slipped 59 places to rank 155th on the 2021 Fortune Global 500 list released on Monday. Reliance took a beating on the rankings as revenues dropped owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is its lowest ranking since 2017. Walmart continues to top the Fortune list with a revenue of $524 billion, followed by China's State Grid at $384 billion.
A board position requires one to hold at least 3 per cent of the outstanding shares. Binny holds around 5 per cent stake in Flipkart
SoftBank-backed mobility firm Ola, announced expansion of its employee stock options (ESOP) pool to Rs 3000 crore. Ola is also allocating an additional Rs 400 crore worth of stocks to employees in the run up to its IPO. The allocation rewards Ola's high impact employees and will lead to long term wealth creation for them.
Where Binny slipped up badly was in gauging the level of transparency and governance that is expected by a global strategic investor, says Indrajit Gupta.
Having grown swiftly since the acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart in 2018, it was looking at a valuation of $10 billion. However, factors such as lack of diversification, new e-commerce and data policies, as well as the overall investment environment, have slowed the process.
The boom in organised retail will set the tone for major economic overhaul. The ripple effect will be improved supply chains, volume output, integration into global commerce, and higher tax collection, notes T N Ninan.
Zomato has the potential to be an equally important milestone for Indian equity markets, notes Akash Prakash.
'In investing, you have to first make sure you don't make big mistakes.' 'I would advise small investors to be systematic, don't be arbitrary; don't be on either end of the risk spectrum.' 'Don't go from fixed deposit to option trading or crypto trading.'
The legal regime does not permit home delivery of medicines, tough owing to situation of COVID-19 pandemic and an emergency-like situation, the government allowed the home delivery of medicines but it was meant for only neighbourhood pharmacies, AIOCD said.
Retailers present in India are in talks with Carrefour to buy its assets piecemeal, rather than the whole business.
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