E-commerce giant Amazon and Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy's Catamaran Ventures have "mutually decided" to not continue their joint venture (JV) beyond the end of its current term. The JV, Prione Business Services, which has been running successfully for the past seven years, was coming up for renewal on May 19, 2022. The JV enabled over 300,000 sellers and entrepreneurs to go online. It also enabled 4 million merchants with digital payment capabilities, providing these small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and merchants access to millions of customers across the country.
India's e-commerce market is poised to grow by 84 per cent to $111 billion by 2024 on the back of accelerated adoption of digital technologies amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a report by fintech firm FIS said on Wednesday. The report noted that countries, including India, have seen a shift in consumer behaviour caused by COVID-19, and new payment trends are shown to be on the rise. FIS, in its 2021 Global Payments Report, examined current and future payment trends across 41 countries. India's e-commerce market is projected to grow by 84 per cent between now and 2024 to about $111 billion (from about $60 billion in 2020) driven by mobile shopping, which is projected to grow 21 per cent annually over the next four years, the report said.
Tata Group is set to become India's first homegrown iPhone maker after Taiwan's Wistron Group agreed to sell a plant in Bengaluru to India's largest conglomerate. Wistron's board approved the sale of Wistron InfoComm Manufacturing (India) Private Ltd to Tata Electronics for $125 million, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer said in a statement on Friday. The unit operates an iPhone assembly plant near Bengaluru.
Some regulators are already unleashing their own algorithms to track and understand pricing software of e-commerce companies. While companies collude on pricing, governments are collaborating on curbing online malpractices. The legal liability of an algorithmic decision will be interpreted as legal liability of an entity of an individual. Anti-trust activities of algorithms will not go unchallenged in any economy.
With the fashion world blurring the lines between innovation, technology and reality, shopping is all set to be revolutionised.
Ashok Kumar Gupta, chairman of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), has never minced words while talking about the giant technology companies, referring to them on multiple occasions as "centres for entrenched and unchecked dominance". The anti-trust regulator has, in fact, been cracking down on big technology companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook, and others, after they were hauled up by regulators and lawmakers in Europe and Australia. However, in several instances, existing regulations have prevented the CCI from going all out against these companies for anti-competitive activities.
The wholesale price-based inflation declined to a 19-month low of 8.39 per cent in October, on easing prices of fuel and manufactured items. This is the first time in 19 months that WPI inflation print has come in single digit. Last was in March 2021 at 7.89 per cent. Since April 2021, WPI inflation remained in double digits for 18 months with September print at 10.79 per cent.
The groups plan to take on well-entrenched players like Amazon, Flipkart, and Paytm by merging their offline businesses with e-commerce initiatives.
Adani Enterprises, the flagship firm of billionaire Gautam Adani's group, has bought a close to 30 per cent stake in Start Enterprises Pvt Ltd, which owns the online train ticket booking platform Trainman. Adani Enterprises last month announced that it has signed a pact to acquire 100 per cent of SEPL In a stock exchange filing on Saturday, Adani Enterprises said Adani Digital Labs Pvt Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, has bought a 29.81 per cent stake in SEPL for Rs 3.56 crore.
Jio is now present in all of the 29 states.
Investors are increasingly turning optimistic about shares of new-age companies. From broad-based 'sell' calls, analysts are giving thumbs up to Zomato, Paytm, and FSN e-Commerce Ventures-owned Nykaa as these companies have shifted focus to sustainable profits. The shares of Zomato hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 126 apiece on the BSE on November 7, having rallied 15.4 per cent in one week.
With over 80 million Unified Payments Interface (UPI) users, Amazon Pay, the payments business of e-commerce giant Amazon, has been growing at 40-50 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y), said Mahendra Nerurkar, chief executive officer (CEO) and vice-president (V-P), Amazon Pay India. "Leveraging just the micro peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions on UPI is not a business model. "While we have enabled those features, we do not chase monthly active users based on this.
The current broadcasting platforms believe the road ahead for Netflix might not be a cakewalk
In a bid to provide a level playing field, the government has decided not to levy 2 per cent digital service tax if goods and services are sold through Indian arm of foreign e-commerce players.
The show-cause notice dated February 8 by DCGI V G Somani cited a Delhi high court order dated December 12, 2018, which prohibits online sales of medicines without a licence.
Ajit Balakrishnan offers a thinking man's guide to the state of ecom in a nation of shopkeepers.
Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) is discussing a three-pronged plan that includes an additional divestment of $250-300 million this year, apart from what it has diluted in favour of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and US-based private equity fund KKR recently.
'Everywhere our younger computer professionals are in the forefront, defending our national interest in every forum and keeping our flag flying high.'
'At Snapdeal, our aim is to become the best-in-class technology company.'
Similar discounts compared to online led to a spike in demand for offline, where customers can get a more personal and hands-on product experience.
Amphibious drones for maritime inspection... devices that extract pure oxygen from water for patients in need... self-balancing electric bikes...
'We look at the opportunities that are going to come in various fields in the next 5 to 10 years, do some research and come up with business plans.' 'Then, we go and seek out founders who will run the actual business.'
WhatsApp to foray into digital payments & expand to other markets
RRVL will make an open offer to acquire up to an additional 2.17 crore equity shares of Just Dial, representing 26 per cent stake, in accordance with Sebi Takeover Regulations, a regulatory filing said.
Riniki Bhuyan Sarma, the wife of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, has filed a Rs 10 crore defamation suit against Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi for 'false' allegations of irregularities in a food processing project.
Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
E-commerce companies managed to beat the odds by adopting a flexible approach in terms of transforming their business models and leveraging emerging technologies. They had to constantly align their objectives with evolving customer needs. With companies hiring thousands of temporary workers, expanding to smaller cities, and launching new products, e-commerce giants gird up to celebrate the peak festival season without Covid restrictions after a three-year time-out.
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.
Apple will next week open its first retail store in India, in signs of importance the iPhone manufacturer attaches to the world's fastest growing smartphones market. The company will open its first official store in Mumbai on April 18 and the second in Delhi on April 20. The company at present sells its products in India through exclusive Apple Premium Reseller (APR) stores, large format retail chains like Reliance Digital, Croma etc, mutli-brand retail stores and through e-commerce platforms.
FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd, which operates online beauty e-commerce platform Nykaa, on Monday said it has fixed a price band of Rs 1,085-1,125 per share for its initial public offer (IPO) that opens for subscription later this week. The IPO will open for subscription on October 28 and conclude on November 1. IPO comprises a fresh issue of equity shares aggregating up to Rs 630 crore (fresh issue) and an offer for sale of up to 41,972,660 equity shares being offered by the selling shareholders (offer for sale or OFS), a statement said.
However, the government's draft policy on e-commerce companies has forced consumer companies to also adapt to the changes. For Dabur India, e-commerce channel continues to be a key driver of growth in urban India. The contribution of online sales to its entire portfolio is at six per cent compared to 1.5 per cent before the pandemic.
India to be 2nd largest IT market in APAC by 2019: Gartner
Things are looking up for engineering firms and Siemens is likely to be one of the leading beneficiaries. Apart from the generic revival in activity, which is expected to continue through the 2023-24 financial year (FY24), the Budget has a strong infrastructure thrust, which works in Siemens' favour. The company reported a standalone Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) of Rs 550 crore (up 66 per cent year-on-year or YoY) in Q1FY23 (Siemens follows the October-September accounting year).
'We are engaging in substantial open market sales of both wheat and rice to control food inflation; special measures of market intervention in vegetables, pulses and oil seeds were also taken to cushion the impact.'
'We want to achieve overall profitability, and then we would go for an IPO.'
'There is a need for a national task force with a singular objective to increase automotive exports.'
Salaries in India are expected to increase by 10.3 per cent in 2023, highest among major world economies and Asian peers, according to Aon plc. In 2022, salaries in India witnessed an actual increase of 10.6 per cent in 2022. As per Aon plc's 28th Annual Salary Increase Survey in India, double-digit salary growth will continue in India despite economic volatility, largely as a response to high attrition rates.
The company aims to bring in a million on-board sellers in the next three years.
The US Trade Representative's (USTR) office will also conduct the Section 301 probe against nine others, including Austria, Brazil, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Turkey, the Czech Republic, the UK, and the EU, for levying or considering digital services taxes "discriminating against US companies".
The latest cuts come after the company announced earlier this year that it was eliminating some 18,000 positions as part of a major cost-cutting bid at the e-commerce giant. "Given the uncertain economy... and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount," Jassy said in a memo to staff.
