China's covid crisis could provoke a raw material crunch for India's EV industry later this year.
The calendar year 2024 is set to go down as the best year for initial public offerings (IPOs) in terms of funds raised. Following the IPOs of food delivery major Swiggy and two other companies slated for next week, this year's total will reach nearly Rs 1.2 trillion, going past 2021's record tally of Rs 1.19 trillion. Swiggy's Rs 11,327 crore IPO, the sixth-largest in India, and solar energy firm Acme Solar Holdings' Rs 2,900 crore IPO opened on Wednesday (Nov 6), while health-tech firm Sagility India's Rs 2,106 crore IPO opened a day earlier.
Fundraising momentum is expected to accelerate further in the New Year, potentially surpassing 2024's record figures
With India's gig economy projected to double in size, reaching over 10 million workers in the coming years, Ola Electric unveiled its new line of budget-friendly e-scooters, starting at under Rs 40,000. The market responded positively, with Ola Electric's stock rising by 5.67 per cent, closing at Rs 73.47 on the BSE.
If growth reverts to the pre-Covid level, a lot of people may have to temper their rosy optimism, points out Debashis Basu.
Roughly 40% of this projected outlay is expected to go towards emerging industries, including green hydrogen, clean energy, semiconductors, and electric vehicles.
The first luxury car will be launched in the first quarter of 2025 and the company is planning to open 12 'MG Select' showrooms in the next six months.
TotalEnergies will acquire 25 per cent shareholding in Adani New Industries Ltd -- the firm that houses Adani Group's new energy business -- for an undisclosed amount, the two firms said in separate statements. "TotalEnergies has entered into an agreement with (Adani Group's flagship) Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL) to acquire a 25 per cent interest in ANIL," the French energy giant said.
GAIL India's second quarter (Q2FY25) performance met expectations.
India's e-commerce market alone is projected to reach $200 billion by 2026, making it a prime industry for ambitious entrepreneurs, explains rediffGURU Harsh Bharwani.
Tata Power's Q2FY25 reported results were above consensus despite challenges like low plant availability at Mundra and Odisha discom operations affected by rain. A positive development for the power major included module manufacturing hitting nearly 100 per cent capacity utilisation. The Board has approved an investment proposal for a 1GW pumped storage project (PSP).
rediffGURU Krishna Kumar, founder and CEO of GoMoTech, offers expert advice on how to scale up in your career.
Internship opportunities have been posted by 193 companies, including Jubilant Foodworks, Maruti, Eicher Motor, L&T, Muthoot Finance and Reliance.
The Cyberster is currently sold in the UK for about Rs 63 lakh and is expected to be priced between Rs 65 lakh and Rs 70 lakhs.
The Q2FY25 revenue for Coal India (CIL) was reported at Rs 30,700 crore (down 6 per cent year-on-year or Y-o-Y and 16 per cent sequentially). The blended average selling price was Rs 1,622/tonne (down 6 per cent Y-o-Y and 3 per cent quarter-on-quarter or Q-o-Q). Adjusted operating profit stood at Rs 7,200 crore (down 20 per cent Y-o-Y and 38 per cent Q-o-Q) due to lower-than-expected e-auction volumes and higher costs.
Since 2008, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency is running a star rating programme, under which electric equipment are rated according to their efficiency. This in turn helps the consumers save electricity.
Air India sale will give a boost to India's privatisation drive, the Economic Survey said on Monday, as it suggested redefining the public sector role in business enterprises to encourage private participation in all sectors. The government earlier this month handed over ownership rights in national carrier Air India to Tata Group for Rs 18,000 crore. The amount includes the takeover of the debt burden of Rs 15,300 crore and another Rs 2,700 crore in cash.
Adani group is on track to surpass a combined Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) of Rs 1 trillion in the ongoing financial year (FY25) as it prepares for a $2 billion (over Rs 16,700 crore) share sale by its flagship entity Adani Enterprises next month, according to a source close to the matter.
The eighth Budget of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman continued to focus on 'GYAN' (Garib, Youth, Annadata, Nari) to maintain a consistent and coherent strategy initiated over the years in pursuing the government's vision for Viksit Bharat. The approach, characterised by incremental yet impactful steps, aims to create a compounding effect over time.
The IPO market will be bustling next week, with four companies, including Bajaj Housing Finance, set to launch their initial share-sale to raise a total of Rs 8,390 crore. Besides these four main-board IPOs, nine SMEs are preparing to debut with their maiden public issues next week, targeting to collect Rs 254 crore. Together, these 13 firms are looking to raise Rs 8,644 crore through IPO.
L&T surprised on the upside of consensus due to stronger-than-expected growth overseas. The Q1FY25 results were ahead of estimates on both revenue and net profit fronts. The company reported a 15 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth in revenues along with 15 per cent Y-o-Y growth in operating profit and 12 per cent Y-o-Y growth in net profit on consolidated basis.
India's export of fuels like diesel to the European Union jumped 58 per cent in the first three quarters of 2024, with a bulk of them likely coming from refining discounted Russian oil, according to a monthly tracker report. The EU/G7 countries in December 2022 introduced a price cap and an embargo on the imports of Russian crude oil in a bid to cripple Kremlin's revenue and create a vacuum in its funding for the invasion of Ukraine.
Stepping up the competition in the electric vehicle (EV) market, JSW MG Motor on Wednesday launched its electric crossover sport utility vehicle (SUV) Windsor with a new and 'aggressive' pricing model, an assured buyback plan, a lifetime battery warranty, and free public charging for one year. Under this new battery-as-a-service (BaaS) pricing model, customers can purchase the Windsor at a starting price of Rs 9.99 lakh (ex-showroom) and then pay a battery usage fee of Rs 3.5 per kilometre (km).
Siemens delivered a strong margin performance and also reported high other income to beat consensus in the January-March quarter (Q2) of FY24 (the company's year-end is September 30). In addition, it has opted to demerge the energy vertical with a 1:1 award of shares in the newly demerged entity which will be listed by the end of this year (CY25).
Electric vehicle retail sales in the country witnessed over three-fold jump last fiscal with two-wheeler offtake leading the segment, according to data compiled by automobile dealers' body FADA. Total electric vehicle (EV) retails reached 4,29,217 units in 2021-22, a rise of three-fold from 1,34,821 units in the financial year 2020-21, the industry body said. Total EV sales had stood at 1,68,300 units in the 2019-20 fiscal, it noted.
German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz is considering assembling more electric vehicles at its plant in India not merely to gain cost advantage but also to meet its zero emission mobility and carbon neutral setup goals, according to a senior company official. Mercedes-Benz India, which currently assembles its flagship electric luxury sedan EQS at its Chakan unit, is considering localisation of other models depending on demand.
Even as Russia and West Asia have been slugging it out for market share in India to sell their crude oil, the US is quietly making its moves on the sidelines. The US has doubled its share of the Indian crude market in the past few months, according to industry sources and ship-tracking data. Some of the increase in America's market share may have come at the expense of Russia, India's biggest crude oil supplier, said industry sources.
The early-bird results for the April-June quarter of 2024 (Q1FY25) hint at a slowdown in corporate revenues and profits in FY25. Corporate profits might face headwinds from a continued revenue growth slowdown and a reversal in margin gains from lower commodity and energy prices in FY24. The combined net profit (adjusted for exceptional gains and losses) of the 210 companies that have declared their Q1FY25 results so far is down 4.2 per cent from the year-ago period - their worst showing in seven quarters.
The electric scooter juggernaut which has been picking up momentum with heady growth month-on-month is now slowing down. The combined number of registrations in April of eight electric two wheeler companies has seen a dip of over 1 per cent to 43,061 vehicles, according to data from the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways' site VAHAN. The reasons are the continuing shortage of chips, especially after the Ukraine-Russia war, and the spate of fires which have led to scooters being recalled by manufacturers.
India may have to lean more on West Asian nations for supplies of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a cooking fuel, in the coming years after Indian state-run refiners drew up big plans to diversify into producing more profitable petrochemicals. This shift leads to reduced LPG output, Indian refining executives said. The mantra for state-run oil companies, from Indian Oil Corporation (IndianOil) to liquefied natural gas (LNG) importer Petronet LNG, which are looking to diversify their businesses from lower-margin fuels, has been value-added petrochemicals.
'The pricing model will be different. The product will be different.'
India, the world's third largest oil consuming and importing nation, in July bought $2.8 billion worth of crude oil from Russia, second only to China which remains the largest importer of Russian oil, a report said. Russia emerged as India's biggest supplier of crude oil, which is converted into fuels like petrol and diesel in refineries, after Russian oil was available on discount following some European nations shunning purchases from Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Domestic commercial-vehicle (CV) sales volume will witness significant growth over the next few years and the overall CV volume is likely to reach close to 1-million units by FY24, a report said on Wednesday. The report by credit ratings agency Fitch Ratings also expects growing demand and the resultant rise in operating leverage to boost the profitability of the domestic CV-focused original equipment manufacturers after FY22, despite elevated production costs. A recovery in medium and heavy CVs from multi-year lows, along with sustained growth in light CV categories, will help overall CV volume to reach close to 1-million units by FY24 - the level of the last cyclical peak recorded in FY19, it said.
The post-Covid pandemic boom in corporate revenues appeared to have faded away in 2023-24. Yet, companies have reported a sharp recovery in their profits in FY24, driven by high margins. Their combined net sales, including gross interest income for lenders, rose by a modest 4.8 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in FY24.
In two years, the start-up Overqualified Housewives has helped over 6,000 women across India find flexible-job roles across India from salaries ranging between Rs 8,000 to Rs 80,000, making them financially independent.
Lisa Curtis, who served as deputy assistant to President Trump and as National Security Council senior director for South and Central Asia from 2017 to 2021, said she expected the same bumps for India and the US, as in Trump's first term, including tariff, dependence on Russia over arms supply and oil purchase from Iran. Curtis, however, said both countries could never enter an alliance but develop a partnership that is "short of an alliance". She hoped them to achieve a cooperation that deters China, but also prepares both countries in case of a crisis or conflict, be it in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea, or another flare-up on the India-China border.
The Ministry of Heavy Industries has approved 11 electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers, including Ather Energy, Bajaj Auto, Hero MotoCorp, Ola Electric, and Mahindra, to receive incentives under the recently introduced Electric Mobility Promotion Scheme (EMPS) 2024. "A total of 11 firms have been granted approval under the EMPS, with several more under consideration," informed a senior official of the ministry to Business Standard. The scheme aims to sustain the growth in EV sales, replacing the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles - II (FAME-II) scheme.
Operating margins have been the primary driver of corporate earnings in India in recent quarters, despite revenue growth suffering from weak consumer demand. Companies across sectors have reported a sharp improvement in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) margins over the past two years, benefiting from lower commodity and energy prices. Higher margins more than compensated for slower revenue growth, resulting in double-digit growth in net profit for five consecutive quarters.
Electric two-wheelers have zipped past the half-a-million registration mark and achieved a market penetration of 4 per cent at the fag end of Calendar 2022, according to data released by VAHAN. According to VAHAN data for the year (until December 27), 560,000 two-wheelers were registered in the country, up a staggering fourfold over 2021, when only 136,000 were registered, and when electric vehicle penetration was a mere 1.05 per cent. The total number of two-wheelers (internal combustion engine, or ICE, and electric) registered so far in 2022 stands at 14.5 million, up only 12.7 per cent over the previous calendar year.
Consolidated earnings for oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) may report sequential weakness, and modest year-on-year (Y-o-Y) growth in the June 2024 quarter (Q1FY25), said analysts. Lower refining margins are expected to moderate gains made from other businesses. RIL is slated to report its financial performance for Q1FY25 on July 19.
