The Indian retail segment has its own uniqueness and the country is one of the most exciting markets globally that is poised to grow to over a trillion dollars by 2025, according to Walmart Inc President and CEO Doug McMillon. Speaking at the Converge@Walmart event, McMillon noted that given the diversity of the Indian market, the company has to "think local and execute locally". "India is such a diverse market, it's not one country in some ways and so we have to think local and execute locally, and it has its own rules, and so, we've got to comply with those rules," he said.
With an epic battle of billionaires for supremacy in one of the world's most prolific markets and a pandemic-propelled surge in online shopping in the background, India's nearly trillion-dollar retail market is hoping to touch 85 per cent of the pre-COVID business in the first half of the New Year. In a year when the COVID-19 carnage ripped apart the retail business, circa 2020 will best go down for the unravelling of the war between Jeff Bezos, the world's wealthiest man, and richest Indian Mukesh Ambani for pre-eminence in the booming market that is estimated to reach $1.3 trillion by 2025. It all started with Ambani's Reliance Industries agreeing in August to buy assets of the nation's second-largest retailer for Rs 24,713 crore, just a year after Bezos' Amazon purchased an indirect stake in the indebted Future Retail.
Streamlining its delivery network and shifting focus back to the mass segment - at a time when competitors were struggling to restore normalcy in operations due to the pandemi - aided the firm's revival.
Indian IT-BPM industry raked in revenues of $119 bn in 2014-15.
India's gold demand recovered during the January-March period to witness a growth of 37 per cent at 140 tonne compared to the same quarter of 2020, due to ease of COVID-related restrictions, pent up demand and softening of prices of the yellow metal, according to the World Gold Council (WGC). The overall gold demand stood at 102 tonne during the first quarter of 2020, as per WGC data. Gold demand in value terms increased by 57 per cent during the first quarter of this calendar year to Rs 58,800 crore compared to Rs 37,580 crore in the corresponding period of 2020.
Bulk of the medicine sales in the $22-24 billion domestic pharma market happens through offline retail chemists. With the entry of online pharmacies, this space has started to witness a shake-up. Sample this: Dawaa Dost, a Rajasthan based digital health start-up, generates medicine orders from 'kirana' stores and women self-help groups (SHGs) that operate in villages, and then service these orders through its affiliated network of pharmacies. Biddano, another health-tech start-up, has a platform that acts as an aggregator for neighbourhood chemist shops.
Right marketing and product strategy have helped Falguni Nayar build a beauty retail business.
Reliance Retail has bought a 25.8 per cent stake in Dunzo, India's leading quick commerce player, for $200 million (around Rs 1,488 crore) as it looks to expand its presence in online grocery delivery business. Dunzo has raised $240 million (about Rs 1,787 crore) in its latest funding round that was led by Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) - the retail arm of Reliance Industries, the two firms said in a statement. Existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital also participated in the funding round.
The Tata group is planning a big splash.
Proceeds will be utilised to expand company's hyperlocal shopping services to over 50 cities
Tax concealment in case of Walmart-owned Flipkart's unit is about Rs 650 crore while the remaining estimation is related to Swiggy.
The Rs 1.5-trillion-a-year industry has ended the year with a 30 per cent fall in sales because after a steady recovery in the festive season, multiple factors dashed its hopes of revival at the end of the year.
'The digital trust level has drastically gone up due to Covid, not only in tier-I and II cities, but also in tier-III, IV and V geographies,'
Future's home retailing interests, including furniture and furnishings, are housed under Praxis Home Retail, which was created in FY18 when the group demerged the business from Future Retail.
Shoppers Stop is looking to open four new stores this year and plans to invest Rs 120 crore.
The applications range from disaster recovery to predicting demand and understanding customer choices using artificial intelligence.
Even as regulatory focus has zeroed in on foreign e-commerce giant Amazon, a domestic retail giant has been created almost below the radar in Reliance Retail (RR), one of the most crucial businesses for the group's future. From doorstep delivery of groceries, apparels to branded jewellery, medicines, toys, furniture to high street retailing, RR's presence in the world's fourth largest consumer market is just one part of the story.
The sale of Nature's Basket, Godrej's chain of food stores in west India, is the second exit by a big group in a year in the category
As more and more businesses move towards digital technology-enabled solutions such as chatbots to increase interaction with their own customers, BPM companies have seen a significant chunk of their revenue proceeds shifting towards business outcomes.
Addressing an online question and answer session, WHO's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said there would be at least one effective vaccine by 2021 but it would be available 'only in limited quantities'. "Most people agree, it's starting with healthcare workers, and frontline workers, but even there, you need to define which of them are at highest risk, and then the elderly, and so on," Swaminathan said on prioritising who gets the vaccine first.
OnePlus became one of the top five in the high-end smartphone market, with 6.1 per cent market share in 2015
The gems and jewellery industry is staring at a sales washout on Akshaya Tritiya for the second consecutive year as most of the states are under lockdowns due to the raging second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic which has led to negative consumer sentiment, say industry leaders. Akshaya Tritiya, considered as an auspicious day for buying gold and jewellery, falls on May 14 this year. India is the worst-hit among all nations with the second wave of the pandemic, which has been killing more than 3,500 daily and infecting close to 4 lakhs daily for weeks. The massive caseload has nearly paralysed the medical infrastructure.
India's huge digital prowess and potential will play a huge role in enabling digital lending, says Romita Majumdar.
After missing two self-imposed deadlines, billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday announced recalibration of a proposed $15 billion deal to sell 20 per cent stake in its oil refinery and petrochemical business to Saudi Aramco, saying the two firms have agreed to re-evaluate the proposed investment in light of the Indian firm's new energy forays. The stake sale talks, which were first officially revealed in August 2019, are being reset in light of Reliance making forays into new energy business in recent months by investing $10 billion in alternative energy over three years. To pivot to green energy, it has already bought a German maker of photovoltaic solar wafers and signed a deal with a Danish company to manufacture hydrogen electrolysers in India.
Indians are eager consumers of digital advertising and are five times more willing to share personal data with companies when they are delighted by their digital experience.
It all started with Flipkart and Amazon trying to outdo each other - after Flipkart announced $1-billion fund-raising in July.
Flipkart claims to have more than 90,000 sellers on its platform.
In the decade since Biyani revolutionised retailing in India, he has attempted a number of things, eventually exiting a few of them.
Companies are innovating with tech tools to ensure that you spend less time at the cash counter.
E-commerce firms like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra and others witnessed successful festive season sales this year, Experts say e-commerce adoption in the country is accelerating by multiple years or what it would have looked like in 2025.
Experts say Biyani will now become a contract manufacturer of fashion and FMCG products, with the Reliance group being one of his customers.
Reliance has announced that it will roll out its e-commerce platform to as many as 1.2 million retailers and store owners in Gujarat. This is part of a nationwide roll-out that will come later this yea, reports Viveat Susan Pinto.
The new-age tech-savvy buyer is seeking new shopping experiences. They need to be engaged. Indian retailers are still playing catch up with these customers.
'The competition between the two is definitely going to be of great interest to the Indian market.'
Online play is a priority now -- so far unthinkable in a business that's all about a meaningful interface with kirana stores.
Nature's Basket is changing its offering. Its new strategy zeroes in on pushing joint ventures, focusing on private labels and reentering Delhi.
Big retailers are openly talking of plans to harness the power of big data, even reporting those in annual reports as part of a long-term strategy.
The Mondelez portfolio in India also includes brands like Bournvita, 5-Star. Nikhat Hetavkar finds out how it stays relevant amid strong pushback from millennials over health effects of its products.
If Sachin Bansal sells his stake at a little over 5 per cent and steps down from Flipkart, as reports have suggested recently, either Binny Bansal or Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart, could be an option for the leadership position.
Seven years after it announced Nexa, there's no mistaking the seriousness with which Maruti wants the segment to grow, says Pavan Lall.
