Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said production linked incentive (PLI) scheme, which is aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing and exports, is expected to increase the country's production by $520 billion in the next five years. Addressing a webinar on PLI scheme, organised by Department of Industry and International Trade (DPIIT) and NITI Aayog, through video conference, Modi said the government is continuously carrying out reforms to boost domestic manufacturing. In this year's Budget, about Rs 2 lakh crore was earmarked for the PLI scheme for the next five years and "there is an expectation that the scheme would result in increasing the production by about $520 billion in the next five years", he said. He added that there is also an expectation that the current workforce in the sectors, which will avail the benefits of the PLI scheme, will be doubled and job creation will also increase.
The department for promotion of industry and internal trade has asked the telecom department and State-owned BSNL to put on hold the tender for setting up 4G network, valued at Rs 9,000 crore, after allegations emerged that the tender favoured foreign companies. The tender was floated by BSNL in March under the new management for setting up the 4G network.
The Sensex and Nifty spiralled lower for the fourth session on the trot on Wednesday as investors remained on edge ahead of US inflation data, which will give clues on the Federal Reserve's policy tightening trajectory. Unabated selling by foreign institutional investors and a jump in crude prices also weighed on sentiment, traders said. Despite a firm start, the 30-share BSE Sensex failed to carry forward the momentum and ended at 54,088.39, lower by 276.46 points or 0.51 per cent. During the day, it tumbled 845.55 points to 53,519.30.
Diverse marquee investors are becoming long-term shareholders of Jio Platforms because of a unique set of technologies and platforms under one entity.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Tuesday reported a 2.8 per cent decline in its consolidated net profit to Rs 830 crore for the third quarter ended December 2021. The company had recorded a net profit of Rs 854 crore in the same period a year ago. Consolidated revenue increased by 12.6 per cent to Rs 29,867 crore, from Rs 26,518 crore in the December 2020 quarter.
India's second-largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Tuesday posted more than twofold year-on-year jump in its consolidated net profit for the March quarter to Rs 2,008 crore, buoyed by a lift in average revenue per user and an exceptional gain. The telco said its Q4 scorecard was backed by strong performance delivery across the portfolio and its CEO Gopal Vittal, in a statement, exuded optimism about opportunities in the coming years and Airtel being "well-poised" as a company. Airtel, which competes in the market with Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea, as well as state-owned BSNL/MTNL, promised to maintain razor sharp focus on financial flexibility, optimising the capital structure and finance cost.
The Cabinet approved giving Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea Ltd and Reliance Jio an option to avail of a two-year moratorium on payments they were supposed to make in yearly installments for the spectrum bought in auctions.
Bidding for the sixth round of spectrum auction for radiowaves worth Rs 3.92 lakh crore will start from March 1, according to a notice issued by the Department of Telecom on Wednesday. The long-awaited spectrum auction is being held after a gap of four years and over two years after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) calculated and recommended base price for the radiowaves. The DoT has fixed January 12 for the pre-bid conference and January 28 as the last date for seeking clarification to the notice.
Vodafone's operating loss from India business jumped to 692 million euros in April-September from 133 million euros in the same period last year.
Although the industry is disappointed with the government decision not to lower spectrum prices at a time telcos are saddled with over Rs 4-trillion debt and an estimated Rs 1.43-trillion licence fee dues, the DCC has relaxed the payment structure to offer some relief to the financially stressed sector.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel on Monday announced an agreement to acquire about 25 per cent equity stake in Bengaluru-based technology startup Lavelle Networks. Further, ASM Technologies, a global technology engineering and product development services provider, has done a follow on investment in Lavelle Networks. In a statement on Monday, Airtel announced the acquisition of about 25 per cent strategic stake in SD-WAN startup Lavelle Networks but did not disclose financial details about the deal that entails a cash consideration.
The new story is the exact opposite of this history, and tells of slowing growth, falling profits, and negative returns on shares.
JP Morgan has downgraded the Indian information technology sector to 'underweight' as it believes the heydays of the sector are over. Rising margin headwinds in the near-term and the revenue headwinds in the medium-term from a potential macro slowdown, Ankur Rudra and Bhavik Mehta of JP Morgan said in the report, will mean that the sector's earnings upgrade cycle is behind. "We see peak revenue growth behind us and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) margins trending down from inflation, mean revision.
Together, the top 10 business groups reported a pre-tax loss of Rs 19,342 crore during the January-March 2020 quarter, as against a profit before tax of around Rs 48,500 crore in the year-ago period and Rs 39,600 crore during the December quarter. While Vedanta was the worst hit. others included Aditya Birla, Bharti, Adani, Mahindra, and Tata.
Tata Steel was the top gainer in the Sensex pack, rallying nearly 4 per cent, followed by Bajaj Finance, M&M, Bajaj Finserv and Reliance Industries. NSE Nifty advanced 33.95 points to a fresh high of 16,563.05.
'While investors in Reliance have had to play a game of patience for long stretches, for Anil the challenge is to do what used to be his brother's forte -- generating cash by putting assets in the ground and making things,' says T N Ninan.
The Delhi high court on Friday dismissed with a cost of Rs 20 lakh actress Juhi Chawla's lawsuit challenging the 5G wireless network technology and said the plea was defective and filed for gaining publicity.
The new proposals will lead to complex processes and huge costs for telecom service providers, without any substantial benefits: COAI
India's largest firm Reliance Industries has initiated work-from-home for its staff while keeping open consumer-facing businesses of hospital, retail stores and telecom with a minimum workforce amid increasing number of Covid-19 cases in the country. Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani will hold a meeting almost every third day to take stock of the impact of novel coronavirus (covid-19) outbreak on his employees and business, officials said.
Investors' wealth rose by Rs 2,22,763.25 crore in three days of market rally, with the benchmark Sensex closing at an all-time high on Thursday. At close of trade, the 30-share BSE index gained 254.80 points or 0.48 per cent to 53,158.85, its lifetime closing high. During the day, the benchmark also reached its all-time intra-day peak of 53,266.12 points. The benchmark has gained 786.16 points in three days.
Nasper-backed fintech firm PayU has started talks to acquire domestic payment gateway major BillDesk, and the deal size could be in the range of $3-4 billion, sources in the know said. "BillDesk has been open to being acquired for some time now, but in the past the valuations that the company was seeking proved to be a hurdle," said a source. "Three years ago too, PayU had approached BillDesk for an acquisition, but things didn't go ahead due to high valuations. "BillDesk had asked for $2-billion value then," said the source.
A series of steps taken by the government to promote ease of doing business and liberalisation of foreign direct investment norms have helped India receive record FDI inflows so far this year, and implementation of measures like PM Gati Shakti, single window clearance and GIS-mapped land bank are expected to further push investments in 2022. Notwithstanding the global slowdown and the COVID-19 pandemic, total foreign direct investments into India rose to a record $81.72 billion in 2020-21. During April-July this fiscal, FDI (foreign direct investment) into the country increased by 62 per cent to $27.37 billion.
Viom Networks is planning to raise arouns Rs 1500 crore (Rs 15 billion) and is likely to list its shares on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), say sources.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your stock market queries.
The deal between Bharti group and Tata Teleservices is yet another example of how swiftly things can change in business.
The Aadhaar-enabled payment system, or AEPS, allows consumers who don't have smartphones or debit cards to perform basic banking transactions like cash deposit, cash withdrawal, intrabank or interbank fund transfer, balance enquiry and obtaining a mini statement through biometric authentication at micro-ATMs.
The government has suffered a loss of Rs 12,488.93 crore (Rs 124.88 billion) due to under-invoicing of gross revenue by six telecom companies including Reliance Communications, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel, the CAG said in a damning report on Friday.
Despite the $11.7 billion raised by Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) through stake sales, venture investments in 2020 have declined by a fifth to $28.9 billion till September, consultancy firm EY said in a report on Thursday. Since mid-March, coronavirus infections started getting reported in the country, which has now become the second highest globally in terms of numbers. The lockdowns severely dented economic activity, leading to a 23.9 per cent contraction in the gross domestic product (GDP) for the April-June period and expectations of a 9.5 per cent contraction by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for 2020-21.
Decision-making has been very poor, Ambani said.
The company at present provides monthly mobile services at starting price of Rs 24 without data, and plans with data service starts from Rs 33 onward. It did not disclose the quantum of hike.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 12 per cent rise in December quarter net profit on improving oil-to-chemical business, strong continued momentum in retail and steady telecom unit Jio.
Demonetisation and Agniveer reveal the two mindsets India has become. In both these government schemes, one sees a desire to play the country like an orchestra anchored by conductor/conductors, argues Shyam G Menon.
The Rs 51 per GB data versus industry norm of Rs 250-plus comes with the caveat of an upfront payment of Rs 1,498 for a year
The department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT) has suggested to the home ministry to allow limited activity in certain sectors such as heavy electricals and telecom equipment with reasonable safeguards. In a letter to Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, the department said that these activities are essential to improve the economic situation and provide liquidity in the hands of the people.
TRAI on Wednesday asked service providers to ensure international mobile roaming (IMR) service is kept 'inactive' by default for all subscribers, and is activated only on explicit request by consumer, as the regulator revamped the framework to protect users from unintentional usage and consequent 'bill shocks'.
'The telecom companies are our lifeline now, despite having nearly collapsed under debt because of ill-advised policies.' 'Perhaps our obvious dependence on telecom services will spark well-conceived policies for this sector,' says Shyam Ponappa.
Among other segments, home broadband subscriptions have picked up and the virtual private network service, too, increased by around 15 per cent.
Make no mistake, Reliance's entry into Indian e-commerce cannot be taken lightly. It is akin to a combine of AT&T and Wal-Mart challenging Amazon on its home turf, says Shailesh Dobhal.
After record fund raising, Reliance Industries now has a strong balance sheet with high liquidity that will support growth plans for its three hyper-growth engines, Jio, Retail and oil-to-chemicals, according to the firm's chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani. In the company's latest annual report released on Wednesday, he said the company sold minority stakes in Jio Platforms -- the unit that houses its telecom and digital business -- and retail arm for almost Rs 2 lakh crore and raised another Rs 53,124 crore through rights issue.