WhatsApp on Wednesday said it expects to facilitate the purchase of "affordable sachet-sized" health insurance through its platform by the end of the year as part of its efforts to provide users in India with greater access to financial solutions. The Facebook-owned company noted that its 'Payments' feature is now available to users across the country (currently up to 20 million users) with support from banking partners - State Bank of India, HDFC, ICICI and Axis Bank.
Readying its game plan, the Bengaluru-based e-commerce giant plans to renew talks of investments in various companies such as Swiggy, BookMyShow, Pepperfry, UrbanClap
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
The writing has been on the wall for some time and it showed up prominently during the festival-season sales last year, when Meesho toppled Amazon to become the second-largest player in order share. During the sales season, 60 per cent of the orders Meesho received were from tier-4 cities and beyond. According to a report by consulting firm Redseer, festival-season sales last year were driven primarily by tier-2 and tier-3 cities, with 64 per cent of the shoppers coming from those.
Embattled retailer Future Retail Ltd (FRL) on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court to avert insolvency proceedings over missing a loan repayment deadline, even as its independent directors rejected an Amazon-supported offer to sell the company businesses at less than a third of what Mukesh Ambani's Reliance is offering. India's second-largest retailer, which operates multi-brand retail chains such as Big Bazaar, Easyday and Heritage, failed to pay Rs 3,494.56 crore to lenders by the due date of December-end and sought a 30-day grace period to resolve the situation. Unable to find money, it moved the apex court seeking to restrain its lenders from declaring the company a defaulter, which can invite initiation of insolvency proceedings.
The service will initially offer digital content from, Hotstar, Sun NXT, Eros NOW, Hungama Play via a single subscription fee of Rs 249 a month
A trip with a new date can be a medley of emotions; it is highly thrilling and, at the same time, surprisingly nerve-wracking. But with these tips in mind, you can aim to have the most memorable holiday together, notes rediffGURU Ravi Mittal, CEO, Quack Quack, an online dating app.
Urvi Malvania looks at what is in store for the IPL's 2019 edition.
'Indian Police Force encapsulates the same spirit, the essence of scale, the essence of action and that riveted rhythm that Rohit Shetty brings about, but is complete with absolute realism.'
iPhone, which accounts for just 3% of sales in India's 100 million-plus annual smartphone market, plans to partner an existing player
The Pandays aka The Travelling Family are making a trip around the world. Three days spent in the Amazon were unforgettable.
In the excitement over the allocation of bank licences for the private sector, a new category of licence offered by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last year went almost unnoticed. That was when the RBI consolidated the rules for prepaid payment instruments (PPI), popularly understood as e-wallets or gift cards. In the process, the regulator has fast-forwarded a bottom-up card usage industry in India that is completely different from the world of bank-linked credit and debit cards.
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.
Culver Max Entertainment, formerly known as Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI), has terminated merger agreements with Zee Entertainment, which could have otherwise created a USD 10 billion media enterprise in the country.
'There will be partnerships between banks and fintech firms, but there will also be areas where they will be direct competitors.'
Within days of announcing mega investments for building in Hyderabad its second data centre cluster in India, Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday said it is excited about the India market, where cloud adoption offers massive headroom for growth. Pledging its long-term commitment to the India market, AWS, Amazon's cloud computing unit, said it expects global uncertainties to accelerate the decisions by companies to opt for flexible, on-demand cloud infrastructure to pare costs, gain efficiencies and drive business innovation. "Cloud reacts well to uncertainty," Puneet Chandok, president - commercial business, AWS India and South Asia, Amazon Internet Services Pvt Ltd (AISPL) told PTI.
Karan Johar hosted a party at his home on Sunday night, April 24, in honour of Bela Bajaria, Netflix's vice president, International Originals.
E-commerce firms Amazon, Flipkart, and others are expected to witness blockbuster festival season sales of around $9 billion this year, surpassing pre-pandemic sales of $5 billion in 2019. The pandemic has accelerated the shift to e-commerce, with more consumers shopping online at a higher frequency than last year, observed analysts. This year's festival sales (gross merchandise value or GMV) are expected to grow 30 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to $4.8 billion during the first week of the season and potentially clock over $9-billion GMV during the whole festival month, revealed consulting firm RedSeer's e-commerce festival season report.
Microsoft will lay off 10,000 workers, about five per cent of its total workforce, its CEO Satya Nadella announced on Wednesday, terming it a hard choice that the tech giant had to make to remain a "consequential company" amid global economic uncertainties. Microsoft is the latest company after Facebook and Amazon to cut jobs as the bloodbath continues in the technology sector in 2023. Describing the current times as "significant change", Indian-origin Nadella said customers who accelerated their digital spend during the Covid-19 pandemic, are now optimising their digital spend to do more with less.
The party went on to say that the "the way the Aarey issue is being oppressed, it is nothing but dictatorship".
The highest domestic package, however, fell 10 per cent
Ronaldo was an unused substitute as United produced arguably its most complete performance of the season. The 37-year-old has scored just two goals in 12 appearances for United this season.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday said the entry of big tech firms into the financial sector poses systemic concerns like overleveraging at the borrowers' ends.
Super heroes, super cops, super fun. Sukanya Verma tells us it's all there on OTT this week.
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.
The race to get a New Umbrella Entity (NUE) licence for digital payments may get crowded. As many as six consortiums are said to be in the fray to apply for an NUE licence, which would create a for-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)-like body for retail payments. A consortium led by Financial Software and Systems (FSS), a leading provider of payment products and payment processor, is in talks and may file an application to the RBI for an NUE license, said sources aware of the development. The other constituents of this group include Indian Bank, Central Bank of India, India Post Payments Bank, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), and a few small finance banks.
In a fresh twist in the fight to gain supremacy in the Indian retail market, billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Retail has slapped notices on Future Retail for terminating sub-leases of 950 stores it had taken over previously. In stock exchange filings, the Kishore Biyani-led debt-laded Future Group firms said they have been served notices to terminate the lease of 835 Future Retail stores and 112 Future Lifestyle stores. Last month, Reliance Retail had taken over store spaces for which the Future Group couldn't pay lease rent. These were then sub-let to the Future Group for operation.
In a short span of time, with the help of Amazon, Cloudtail was able to devise a model that could protect it from the vagaries of online retail business.
Even the worst movies have a song, a scene, or a performance that makes all the effort of making a film worthwhile. This one should have been scrapped at script stage, declares Deepa Gahlot.
Those on H-1B visas have to find a new job within 60 days or head back to India.
Disney+ Hotstar reported its biggest decline in paid subscribers to date - a fall of 3.8 million subscribers, or 6 per cent of its total - in the October-December period. The drop in numbers came after two warnings by the company that Hotstar's paid subscriber base would shrink as it didn't have streaming rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the 2023-27 media cycle. The IPL would start on April 1 this year and continue till May 28.
70 per cent of surveyed respondents have experienced job related issues in the past 3 months.
Google will lay off 12,000 jobs across the globe, its CEO Sundar Pichai announced on Friday, becoming the latest tech giant after Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon to retrench staff en mass amid the global economic downturn. In an email to employees, the Indian-origin CEO said: "I have some difficult news to share. We've decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles." Pichai said the layoffs at Google were carried out after a "rigorous review" of its operations.
As of December 2021, Netflix India stood at an estimated 5 million subscribers against 46 million for Disney+Hotstar and 19 million for Amazon Prime Video.
Apple Inc has announced the India prices of the new variants of its bestselling smartphones - launched on Tuesday - as it assembles the device in the country. The new iPhone 15 range starts at Rs 79,900 for the 128 GB variant (the same price as the iPhone 14 when it was launched last year) and goes up to Rs 199,900 for the top-end Pro Max with a 6.7 inch screen and 1 TB (terabyte) storage. The world's most valuable company also launched three new upgraded Apple watches, starting with the SE at Rs 29,900 and going up to Ultra 2 at Rs 89,900.
Experts say the new guideline is likely to hurt foreign players more, especially card companies such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express who process and store credit card transaction data outside of India.
With no theatrical releases in the pipeline, the OTT platform is the go-to place for new film and Web show releases.
'An 8-week window between theatrical and OTT release is a must!'
Murders, miracles, mission IIT, Sukanya Verma suggests everything you can catch on OTT this week.
Several exchanges are facing a cash crunch with committed investment not coming from venture capital funds and trading activity seeing a sharp decline, reports Rajesh Bhayani.
