Apart from digital advertising revenue, both companies want to reach out to the 'next billion' Indian customers. After all, around half of the 1.3 billion population is still not on the net and this represents a challenge as well as an opportunity.
A new cyber fraud known as 'pig butchering scam' or 'investment scam' has emerged, targeting unemployed youths, housewives, students, and needy people who are made to lose large sums of money daily, according to the latest annual report of the Union home ministry.
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.
'The election results mean that the Opposition can no longer either be ignored or attacked in the way that it has been.' 'For this reason it will be interesting to see how it behaves from here on and whether there is any change in its behaviour,' notes Aakar Patel.
India, the world's fifth largest economy in the world, is likely to overtake Japan to become the world's third-largest economy with a GDP of $7.3 trillion by 2030, S&P Global Market Intelligence said in its latest issue of PMI. After two years of rapid economic growth in 2021 and 2022, the Indian economy has continued to show sustained strong growth during the 2023 calendar year. India's gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow 6.2-6.3 per cent in the fiscal year ending in March 2024, being the fastest-growing major economy this fiscal year.
Global investment management firm Bernstein has pegged the enterprise valuation of Reliance Industries (RIL)'s 85 per cent stake in Reliance Retail at $111 billion, while valuing the Mukesh Ambani-led company's 66.5 per cent stake in telecom and digital platform arm Reliance Jio at $88 billion. Reliance Industries had earlier planned to list both its subsidiaries to unlock value for its shareholders but hadn't fixed any timeline. The report said that Reliance Retail had raised $6 billion by diluting a 10.1 per cent stake, while Jio Platforms raised $20 billion from investors by selling 33 per cent in 2020.
Bengaluru-based InMobi and Microsoft combine their powers to break the stranglehold of Google and Facebook in the digital advertising space.
Among all the geographies where Amazon is fighting regulators, India is the only place where its lines are also tangled in a major corporate battle, this one with India's largest company by market capitalisation over the acquisition of Mumbai-based Future Group's retail chain, the country's second largest. No other corporate entity in any country offers a challenge to Amazon's hegemony in a way Reliance Industries does - and the final hearing of an arbitration case filed at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre between the two may decide at least some of these issues. This legal battle between one of the world's most powerful corporations and one of India's most powerful conglomerates could be complicated by a host of other developments.
Political parties have spent over Rs 53 crore on digital platforms like Google and Facebook between February and May.
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.
The government will "notify such countries or territories outside India to which a data fiduciary may transfer personal data", according to the draft unveiled on Friday for public feedback.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Monday laid bare the succession plan at India's most valuable company, identifying twins children Akash and Isha for telecom and retail leadership, and youngest son Anant for new energy unit. He, however, insisted he isn't retiring yet and will "continue to provide hands-on leadership as before". At the annual shareholders' meeting of Reliance Industries Ltd, he said the robust architecture that he has announced will ensure the firm remains "a unit, well-integrated and secure institution even as it develops existing businesses and adds new growth engines."
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has bluntly told the government there is no reason for its members to roll out 5G networks as they will be unviable if 'captive private wireless networks' are allowed to be run by enterprises. The COAI, which has Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea as its key members, has written to Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw saying there is 'no business case for the roll out of 5G networks'. Permitting such captive networks will 'diminish the revenue so much that there will be no viable business case left for the telecom service providers and there will not remain any need for 5G network roll out by telecom service providers (TSPs)'.
Apple and Signal silent on names required under the new IT rules.
Taxmen have come across instances where global firms - charged a withholding tax of 6 per cent - are underreporting the exact income they earned from an Indian user.
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".
Will they catch the next Google and Apple at the right time?
Monetising online readership, a deeper focus on content and getting revenue from the reader are ways to make the business future-proof, observes Vanita Kohli-Khandekar.
'Google and Facebook need to be tamed, their garb of 'Investing in India's future' need to be pulled off,' observes Vibhu Arya.
Broadcasting and digital companies are ready to join the country's biggest ever auction of sports rights next year.
India's shift towards US companies for technology investments and partnerships fits well with the present government's 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' and 'Make in India' initiatives, say experts.
While the government defends itself, citing the 'seriousness' of the issue, the Opposition suspects the attempts to 'censor' these online platforms by the government are also targeted at quashing the space for public criticism they enable.
Yahoo!'s drive to revive its business hit major roadblocks on Tuesday, as the company's talks to sell back most of its stakes in its Asian partners collapsed and a big investor unveiled plans to mount a board fight.
In a letter to shareholders late night, Bostock and three other directors -- Vyomesh Joshi, Arthur Kern and Gary Wilson -- have volunteered not to stand for re-election to the company's board.
All 21 websites, including Google and Facebook, summoned earlier by a magisterial court, are liable to face prosecution for being privy to the hosting of inflammatory contents on their webpages, the Delhi high court was told on Thursday.
Digital canvassing is expected to benefit from political money looking for alternative blow horns.
The recent remark by Delhi high court that India can go the China way and block Google and Facebook if they do not remove objectionable content has got netizens worrying.
In 2017, a consortium led by Russian state oil company Rosneft agreed to buy Essar Oil for $12.9 billion in India's biggest foreign acquisition of a homegrown company. Rosneft's buyout of Essar's assets was meant to herald a wave of energy investments in India - over six decades after Esso, Caltex and Shell invested in India's refining sector in the 1950s. But the government has tripped up in its efforts to sell Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL), formerly Burmah Shell, a blue chip public sector company. Bidders include a couple of global funds and resources firm Vedanta.
Concerned over objectionable content on social networking sites, the government on Tuesday made it clear it cannot allow this to go on and has asked internet firms like Google and Facebook to fall in line.
Get Ahead reader John Paul gives his five cents on the battle to win the web between Google and Facebook.
While Google has market capitalisation of almost $753 billion and Facebook commands one of $515 billion, it is the wealth of user data they have that one fears
Twitter chief executive officer Dick Costolo has dismissed as rumour reports that Google and Facebook were in talks of acquiring the micro-blogging site for $10 billion.
FutureBrand, which is a global brand transformation company, said part of Reliance's success could be attributed to Mukesh Ambani's recasting of the firm as a one-stop-shop for Indians.
Artificial intelligence and augmented reality will reinforce the importance of the iPhone, says Tim Cook.
For the first time, Internet giant Google is to open Gmail, YouTube and some of its other services to children under the age of 13, according to media reports.
'India should start leveraging rather than banning crypto.'
The proposals are mostly based on a report submitted by Justice B N Srikrishna in July 2018. The draft Bill has since gone through at least two updates based on inputs received from industry, report Yuvraj Malik and Peerzada Abrar.
Programmes offers pared-down web services on mobile phones along with Facebook' s own social network and messaging services cost free
There will be a huge market for healthcare professionals, data and security experts and digital marketers, says Navneet Singh, founder, Avsar HR Services.
The company said this new approach allows developers to train artificial intelligence models without the user data leaving the device, while allowing it to do more with less data.