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.
Morgan Stanley writing down its investment in the e-commerce leader by 27 per cent does not augur well for the sector.
Sara Ali Khan says she is proud to portray a character that echoes 'bravery and courage' in her upcoming movie, Ae Watan Mere Watan.
Future Retail on Saturday said it has missed the due date for payment of Rs 3,494.56 crore to banks and lenders as it could not sell assets due to its ongoing litigation with amazon, impacting its monetisation plans. Future Retail had last year entered into a one-time restructuring (OTR) scheme for COVID-19 hit companies with a consortium of banks and lenders and was to discharge "an aggregate amount of Rs 3,494.56 crore" on or before December 31, 2021. Kishore Biyani-led Future group firm would be "co-operating for completing the monetisation of the specified business within next 30 days" as per directions of the banks to resolve the current situation, said a regulatory filing by Future Retail.
The Indian lenders are worried over the fast depleting asset base of the Future group companies which would make their recovery of dues difficult. The asset base of Future group has eroded in the last two years due to lockdown and takeover of 947 stores by rival Reliance Retail after Future group's lease on the properties expired. Bankers said they have approached bankruptcy court so as to avoid any duplication of legal action and reduce time at the legal forums.
After all, talk of Amazon buying into Flipkart has been doing the rounds for long, although the two Bansals have denied it many times before.
The Indian retail segment has its own uniqueness and the country is one of the most exciting markets globally that is poised to grow to over a trillion dollars by 2025, according to Walmart Inc President and CEO Doug McMillon. Speaking at the Converge@Walmart event, McMillon noted that given the diversity of the Indian market, the company has to "think local and execute locally". "India is such a diverse market, it's not one country in some ways and so we have to think local and execute locally, and it has its own rules, and so, we've got to comply with those rules," he said.
The chief executive of the e-commerce giant is making his second visit to India -- the first since Amazon entered this market.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail on Thursday told the government that complex legal structures have been used by some firms to bypass the country's e-commerce rules which from the very beginning do not allow foreign capital in the inventory-based model. At a meeting called by the commerce ministry on allegations that foreign online retailers created complex structures to bypass foreign investment rules and damage small traders, Amazon urged the government not to issue any clarification until investigations into its business practices had been concluded, sources said. At the meeting, Reliance Retail's representatives said the Indian e-commerce policy does not allow foreign capital in the inventory-based model and foreign investment is allowed only in pure technical infrastructure/ platform that facilitates the meeting of buyer with sellers.
Prominent e-commerce marketplace players include Amazon.in, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Paytm, Shopclues and Jabong
US tech giant Microsoft is in the final stages of talks with the Telangana government to set up a data centre with a total investment of Rs 15,000 crore. According to sources in the state government, the company has zeroed in on a land parcel near Hyderabad for the facility. "In the information technology (IT) space, Telangana is already seeing some major investments. "Microsoft is establishing its data centre here, and it may come out with a public announcement soon," said a source.
All of the 56 impacted associates, eight in the senior management and 48 in the middle as well as lower management, have been offered enhanced severance benefits and out placement services to support their transition, the company said.
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.
'The message is not clear whether we are wanted.' 'All this could adversely impact our strategy in India and also investments.'
Tata Group chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran on Thursday said the group's recently launched super app Neu is on an open architecture and it will host non-group brands as well. The Tatas finally launched its super app Tata Neu on April 7, after piloting it for months, but the group chairman claimed there was no delay in the commercial launch. Stating that the app has received an overwhelming response in the past seven days of going live, Chandrasekaran said the app is on an open architecture and will host products and services from non-Tata group companies.
Did top Indian business groups miss the e-commerce opportunity by focusing on replicating the Walmart model instead of following the Amazon model of online shopping?
US major lost its first mover advantage, now wants to secure its investments in the country.
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.
Every competitor is eyeing the top slot that Flipkart holds.
'If the South starts shooting on IMAX more, it will be beneficial. And likewise, it will benefit Bollywood directors.'
Amazon.in has announced the launch of first-of its-kind women-only outlets for delivering products.
While the market for satellite broadband currently is small, the potential is large as an estimated 30 per cent of the country does not have reliable terrestrial broadband services.
Gautam Adani is now the fourth richest person on the planet. The chairman of the Adani group overtook Bill Gates -- once the richest man in the world -- this week.
Will open radio access network technology (O-RAN) disrupt the way 5G networks roll out in the country? After all, it promises to offer a substantially lower capital cost, enables the choice of an array of vendors, and provides more network flexibility - all very important for telcos who expect to invest over Rs 60,000 crore to roll out a pan-India 5G network and that's without spectrum costs. But more importantly, it counters the stranglehold of global telecom gear makers such as Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung over telcos to whom they sell propriety technology and bundled hardware and software.
Ulhas Joshi, Head -- Sales, Rank MF, a mutual fund investment platform, answers your queries.
E-commerce firms like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra and others witnessed successful festive season sales this year, Experts say e-commerce adoption in the country is accelerating by multiple years or what it would have looked like in 2025.
Thousands of retail investors are reaping the benefits of the disruption that the latest technologies have brought to the equity market. Brokerage firms are aggressively investing in technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, big data and analytics, social media, chatbots, virtual assistants and so on.
The overall e-commerce opportunity in India and China is comparable, yet it's hard to see any single player in India emerging with Alibaba-like market share.
For years it has been evident that fibre and DTH would give tough competition to cable in India where regulatory overload has mutilated an already warped industry structure. OTT added fuel to the fire. From Rs 27,000 crore in 2010, cable's share of subscription revenues is now estimated at Rs 13,000 crore.
Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella on Tuesday said there is a tremendous momentum in cloud adoption, as he termed cloud a "big game changer". Nadella, who is currently in India, addressed Microsoft Future Ready Leadership Summit in Mumbai on Tuesday. He is also scheduled to visit Delhi and Bengaluru this week, and will be meeting key customers, startups, developers, educators and students during his India visit.
Recently, Apple did two things differently. First, it entered video streaming sector with cheaper options and second it has opened up its OTT service for non-Apple users too.
As India builds its data centre capabilities, it is imperative that it is supported by green energy. This is because data centres are guzzlers of energy.
India could allow global online retailers such as Amazon.com Inc to sell their own products as early as next month, removing restrictions that could boost competition in one of the world's biggest, and most price-sensitive, retail markets.
One needs to charge the device every four days, which can provide over 65,000 blood readings and counts.
Cultivate a thirst for knowledge, explore online courses, attend workshops and network with peers. Embrace opportunities to learn new skills and stay updated about industry trends to remain relevant and future-proof your career, advises Manu Saigal, director-general, staffing, Adecco India.
Many small-scale start-ups are operational in this space for some years now. Larger players, too, seem to have realised the potential and are now entering into the fray, mostly through acquisitions.
In its new avatar as the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), it will directly be responsible for 'the welfare of traders and their employees'.
Future Retail Ltd (FRL) on Monday said the Delhi high court has ruled that statutory authorities cannot be restrained from acting in accordance with law and stayed a previous order on status quo of its Rs 24,713 crore deal with Reliance. Updating stock exchanges about the court ruling, FRL said a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh has stayed the operation and effect of order passed by single Judge J R Midha on February 2. "...inter alia, for the prima facie reason that the company is not a party to the Shareholders Agreement dated August 22, 2019 executed between Amazon, Future Coupons Private Limited and the Promoters of FRL, under which arbitration was initiated by Amazon in Singapore," FRL said.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer, is tripling its sourcing from India to about $10 billion a year by 2027, said Judith McKenna, president, and chief executive officer of Walmart International, the segment which includes the company's operations outside the US. "To achieve this, we are growing our sourcing team in India," said McKenna, during a fireside chat with YourStory founder Shradha Sharma at Converge@Walmart, the flagship event of Walmart Global Tech India. "Walmart has a 20-year history of sourcing from India and already exports more than $3 billion worth of Made-in-India goods each year to 14 markets worldwide." McKenna said the company has expertise in processes such as international standards and demand forecasting that businesses need to get ready to export.
Bill Gates specifically complimented India's Aadhaar identity system and the country's performance in the financial services and pharma sectors.
