'Adventure travel, cultural tours, and wellness retreats are in high demand.'
'The finance minister has done as much as she can when you look into the fiscal constraints she had.'
Industry associations and companies in the United States, including the US Chamber of Commerce, Coalition of Services Industries and the iconic bike company Harley Davidson have called on the Donald Trump dispensation to push India to reduce tariffs, non-tariffs, and regulatory barriers to boost American exports.
The road ahead will require navigating complex financial challenges while fostering job creation and sustainable development in the region.
Nearly 28 per cent of urban Indians are planning to spend on gold in the next three months, signalling a renewed appetite for the yellow metal amid the waning effects of second wave of COVID-19, as per a survey. The gems and jewellery industry, which was impacted by the COVID-induced disruptions in 2020, had shown signs of recovery in January-March this year. However, the second wave of the pandemic put a halt to it. Businesses are beginning to look up as state governments are slowly easing restrictions on movements, and organised retailers are hoping consumer demand to show positive sentiment during the festive season this year.
Wedding planner WedMeGood estimates that the average wedding budget has surged to Rs 36.5 lakh this year, with destination weddings averaging Rs 51 lakh.
'Investors should consider small and midcaps only if they can handle volatility and have a longer investment horizon.'
Dr Rajesh Shukla, author of How India Earns, Spends and Saves: Unmasking the Real India, warns against the rising income inequalities India has witnessed after economic liberalisation.
Lamborghini has sold 10,112 cars worldwide -- so India's 100 is certainly a big deal for them. But how big a deal is it for us to peg our consumption theories around, asks Rama Bijapurkar.
Consumer spending patterns are witnessing mega-shifts with implications for all involved parties, says Arvind Singhal.
Many CEOs said they plan to give special leave to women employees so as to encourage their participation in the workforce.
Feel the pinch of predatory pricing by e-tailers
Stock market barometers Sensex and Nifty ended marginally higher on Monday as rise in wholesale inflation capped early gains despite a positive trend in global markets. The 30-share index settled 32.02 points or 0.05 per cent higher at 60,718.71 with half of its constituents ending in green. The broad based Nifty edged up 6.70 points or 0.04 per cent to close at 18,109.45.
From the Sensex basket, Maruti, Mahindra & Mahindra, NTPC, JSW Steel, Larsen & Toubro, Reliance Industries, Axis Bank, and Power Grid were the major gainers. Nestle, Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, HDFC Bank, Titan, HCL Technologies and Infosys were the laggards.
Food inflation has entered negative territory but consumers have had no respite on cost of living.
With digital adoption fast gaining currency, India is likely to see retail digital payments double to $7 trillion by 2030 from current levels, a study by Kearney and Amazon Pay said. In the report 'How Urban India Pays', Kearney-Amazon Pay said strong adoption of digital payments in online purchases has potentially led to a permanent shift in consumer behaviours, fuelling offline adoption as well.
Adani Ports, NTPC, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever, HCL Technologies and Sun Pharma were among the other big gainers. However, Larsen & Toubro, Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank were amonh the major laggards.
One of the key concerns for non-users of voice assistants is trust.
Inbound M&A into India totals $9.86 billion this year, the highest in Asia.
Consumer spending and the sentiment that guides it are the key to the growth of any market economy.
This is an increase of 4% over 2014, ans will be fuelled by rising mobile users and availability of cheap smartphones.
After a prolonged winter, the Indian edtech sector seems to be witnessing some signs of a thaw. The sector has received $608.8 million of funding across 68 deals in 2024 so far - 153 per cent more than the $240.9 million across 106 deals during the same period last year - according to data from market intelligence platform Tracxn.
IMD expects day temperatures to remain above-normal in select regions across the country between March and May 2021.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday commended Indian financial sector regulators for doing a "world-class job" and bringing greater transparency into the system. Underlining that she is not against questioning or critiquing regulators, Sitharaman said there is a need to be "extremely conscious" about contributions made by them as well. Speaking at the Financial Express Best Banks Awards, the finance minister said, "I strongly recommend that facts are taken on board before we discuss anything to do with the regulators, strictly speaking."
The biggest spender was Tata Motors, with Rs 4,224.6 crore assigned under the R&D head.
'Fan armies are not just followers; they are a force of nature.'
Shares of Infosys hit a five-month low of Rs 1,419.60, down 1 per cent on the BSE in Tuesday's intra-day trade. The stock was quoting at its lowest level since October 10, 2022. In past two days, the stock of information technology (IT) bellwether was down 4 per cent after the company on Saturday informed to the stock exchanges that Mohit Joshi, president of the company has resigned effective March 11, 2023. Mohit Joshi will be on leave thereafter and his last date for the company would be June 9, 2023, Infosys said in an exchange filing.
Global rating agency Moody's on Monday raised India's growth forecast for 2024 calendar year to 6.8 per cent, from 6.1 per cent estimated earlier, on the back of 'stronger-than-expected' economic data of 2023 and fading global economic headwinds. India's real GDP expanded 8.4 per cent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2023, resulting in a 7.7 per cent growth for full-year 2023. Capital spending by the government and strong manufacturing activity have meaningfully contributed to the robust growth outcomes in 2023, Moody's Investors Service said.
Automobile retail sales in India declined 9 per cent year-on-year in September amid a massive buildup of passenger vehicle inventory due to sluggish demand, dealer's body FADA said on Monday, urging original equipment manufacturers to take corrective steps. The overall registrations declined to 17,23,330 units last month from 18,99,192 units in September 2023, as most of the categories including passenger vehicles and two-wheelers witnessed a year-on-year (Y-O-Y) drop.
Consumer goods firms and auto companies are witnessing an upturn in rural demand, which had been lagging for most of FY24. Expectations of a bumper rabi crop harvest have helped turn the tide. The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) Monetary Policy Committee kept the repo rate unchanged last week, noting that as rural demand catches up, consumption is expected to support economic growth in 2024-25.
The Fed has said it wants to be "reasonably confident" in the inflation outlook before a rate hike.
The new data comes a day after China and the US signed a long-awaited phase one deal, marking a ceasefire in the 18-month-long trade war which saw the world's two largest economies slap 25 per cent tariffs on about half a trillion-dollar worth of each other's exports. The world's second-largest economy grew by 6.1 per cent last year, its worst performance since 1990, but it remained above the psychologically important mark of six per cent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
According to an NSSO survey, Indians in rural areas spend less than Rs 21 per day, while in urban area an Indian spends about Rs 39 per day.
Info Edge (India), the country's leading consumer internet company known for its platforms in recruitment (naukri.com), real estate (99acres.com), matrimony (jeevansathi.com) and education (shiksha.com) space, delivered revenue growth in line with expectations in the April-June quarter (Q1) of FY25.
'Without a poverty line, how are we to know whether poverty is the same, or it has come down or it has gone up?'
'it's not just youth in India who are left behind because of their inability to find jobs; nearly two-thirds of Indian women of working ages do not participate at all in the paid labour force.'
C P Chandrasekhar, who has served on key statistical panels in the past both as a chairman and member, said he was present in the campus when the ruckus broke out on Sunday and found the incident "disturbing" and "unprecedented", and that it further undermined the faith in the system. Somesh Jha reports.
Debit card payments remained sluggish due to the surge in digital transactions after the pandemic, and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) has emerged as the most popular mode of money transfer, particularly for small value transactions, according to RBI data. In July 2020, the total debit card spends stood at Rs 2.81 trillion, as compared to Rs 3.15 trillion in July 2023, reflecting a growth of 11.96 per cent. UPI spends have seen a whopping growth of 428 per cent, zooming from Rs 2.90 trillion to Rs 15.33 trillion during the same period, the data revealed.
The Ericsson Consumer Lab study was conducted among 4,000 smartphone users across 18 urban cities in India.
When AI is used to enhance operational efficiency, businesses can deliver the same product or service but with improved quality, faster, or even at a reduced cost
