Bullets

Paytm might be losing the game as a payment aggregator, but it's banking its hopes on loans now.

While the fintech company's history has not been the greatest since it was listed, its loan distribution network has scaled up to reach 3.4 million loans disbursed during October 2022 worth ₹3,056 crore. The number of loans experienced a Y-oY increase of 161%, and the value rose by 387% Y-o-Y.

Merchant payments volume rose by 42%, reaching ₹1.18 lakh crore for October.

Zomato shareholders might finally experience an end to the bitter taste left by the food-delivery company in their portfolios. Zomato experienced a 62% YoY increase in its operating revenue reaching ₹1,661 crore for the last quarter ended September 2022.

The company's Total Adjusted Revenue (Revenue from Operations+Delivery Charges), jumped by 48% YoY to reach ₹2,107 crore. At an average exchange rate of $1=₹80, Zomato's annualised return crossed the $1.05 billion threshold, making the stocks climb by 15% over the week.

HUL and GSK are ending their distribution contract initiated after HUL acquired GSK Consumer in 2020 in a deal worth ₹31,700 crore. As a result of the termination, GSK Consumer's products, such as Crocin, Eno, Iodex, Ostocalcium, Otrivin, and Sensodyne, will no longer be sold by HUL.

The termination shall have a notice period of 1 year starting from November 9th, 2022.

Is HUL losing valuable products from its offerings? Or is GSK losing a strong distribution channel?

Reliance Industries Limited's wholly-owned subsidiary, Model Economic Township (MET), has started developing a Greenfield Smart City near Gurugram, Haryana. The smart city shall be developed on a property of over 8,000 acres.

MET city will be a Japan Industrial Township that will house four Japanese companies; namely, Nihon Kohden, Panasonic, Denso and T-Suzuki. Nihon Kohden is looking to build its biggest medical facility in MET city, which would be 4 times bigger than its establishment in Gujarat.

Edtech is in for a bitter lesson. Unacademy has decided to fire 350 employees in the second round of layoffs as it struggles to maintain its financial health.

Citing financial shortfalls, the edtech platform implemented pay cuts for management and employees as well as scaled-down operations by stopping global test preps, complimentary meals etc.

“We need to keep optimising and building efficient systems for leaner and unprecedented times,” these words by the CEO do not bode well for the employees.

Reliance Retail is looking to enter the beauty and salon space by acquiring a 49% stake in the Chennai-based Naturals Salon & Spa. Naturals aims to open 3,000 stores by the year 2025, a goal that seems more achievable with this improvement in funding.

Reliance seems really bent on making its portfolio beautiful as it is reported to be in deals to acquire Indian rights to LVMH's Sephora as well as opening its first in-house fashion and lifestyle store, Azorte.💅

India has become the apple of Apple's eye. As China implements Covid Zero Policy, its major manufacturing facility in Zhengzhou faces lockdown restrictions. These restrictions, in turn, affect Apple's supply chain, causing the tech giant to look for other options.

This is where India swoops right in with its Pegatron manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu. The facility had already started producing iPhone12 earlier this year and had employed over 7,000 employees by September end.

The USA is turning into a DJ, but instead of hyping the crowd and dropping the bass, it is hiking interest rates and dropping the financial markets.

The US Fed hiked interest rates by 75 basis points from 3.75% to 4.00% and hinted that this hike might be the last phase of its attempt to curb inflation in the country. Nasdaq, S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial each fell by 3.36%, 2.5% and 1.55%, respectively, after this decision.📉

Ola is on fire! And finally, in a good way!

The Indian EV market saw a month-on-month increase of 23% to reach 1,14,001 vehicle registrations in October. Registrations for September stood at 92,833 units. The growth is truly monumental, as the entire 2020-21 year saw total sales of 1,33,000 units.

Two-wheelers occupied the majority of sales for October, with 75,294 units making up 66% of the month's total sales. Ola, with over 16,000 units sold, led this segment.👏

November's here, which means we get a new currency. That's the trend, right?

If not, it will soon become one following the release of India's CBDC, named Digital Rupee. Digital Rupee will release in a pilot plan where wholesale users will test the currency first for a month. Retail tests begin shortly.

SBI, BoB, Union Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank and HSBC will participate in this phase for settlements.

Future Group is just a gold mine of news! Bad news, of course, but that's a different story. Future Entreprises Limited (FEL) has defaulted in the repayment of ₹126.13 crore in principal amount to various lenders for the month of September. This default consists of ₹98.35 crore in Non Convertible Debentures and ₹27.78 crore that is owed to banks.

Another takeover means that FEL loses its real estate business and investments in various subsidiaries like insurance, textile, supply chain, etc.💸

Elon Musk, in his public address after the Twitter acquisition, made clear that irrelevant ads were "spam" and more relevant ones were "content". With such a focus on advertising, one mustn't forget that the social media acquisition makes it more of the billionaire's ad playground.

Don't believe me? Look at the numbers. The SpaceX founder's favourite meme cryptocurrency, Dogecoin, experienced a 41% hike, with Elon gaining traction on social media.

Crypto being crypto, the prices have started to fall already.

After seesaw-ing for the longer part of the year, Elon Musk is going through with his $44 billion Twitter purchase. After the acquisition, Musk posted a message on the platform stating that his motive behind the purchase was "to try to help humanity", which he "loves".

Post-takeover, his first move was to fire the CEO, among other executives. So much for "helping humanity".

Musk also promised to improve advertisements, making the platform more welcoming, among other things.👀

The CCI has finally approved the Zee-Sony merger after Zee agreed to sell three of its minor channels, Big Magic, Zee Action and Zee Classic. CCI opposed the merger before as it would have an "appreciable adverse effect on competition" (AAEC). The merger will result in the formation of a $10 billion TV enterprise with over 92 channels.

So, to avoid the merger gaining monopoly, they had to get rid of three irrelevant, possibly dead-weight of channels. That makes sense.🤷‍♂️

Infosys seems keen on opposing Wipro's stoic stance on moonlighting. Changing its tone from the "No two-timing, no moonlighting" message to its employees, Infosys is taking a more relaxed approach to the whole situation.

The only condition, a somewhat obvious one, is that employees refrain from associating with competing organisations and moonlight on their "personal time".

Following the flak that Wipro's chief received, Tata's need to people-please might get it in trouble.

The Competition Commission of India has charged Google with a ₹1,337 crore fine for anti-competitive practices in reference to the Android software ecosystem. The allegations behind this fine include the forced installation of its Google Mobile Suite on phones as well as establishing one-sided contracts that made Google's apps the default preference. These cumulative charges comprise its "abuse of dominant position".

Google was supposed to get rid of the bloatware in its devices, not make its apps the bloatware.

Amazon's Great Indian Festival turned has turned out to be its biggest event yet in terms of units sold and value. The e-commerce giant has released its stats, and the numbers look good, not just for Mr Bezos but also for the sellers!

Amazon reported over 650 sellers becoming crorepatis, and 23,000 sellers becoming lakhpatis. What's better, over 70% of these sellers came from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.🤑

Seems Amazon is finally becoming India's Apni Dukaan.🤗

Adani's acquisition of NDTV might face hiccups as SEBI raises an appeal against SAT's order that authorized the deal. The NDTV takeover comes as a result of VCPL's loan from the Adani Group that it couldn't repay. The root cause of the trouble is the 10-year, interest-free loan that VCPL took from Adani Group, pledging its 29% stake in NDTV.

SAT's approval of the deal did not sit well with SEBI causing the whole deal to get tangled in litigation.👩🏿‍⚖️

Amul and Mother Dairy have announced another price hike of ₹2 per litre. The current hike was the third this year after March and August each saw increments of ₹2. With the approach of Diwali, this price increase will naturally see a rise in the price of sweets and other dairy-based products. The input cost of fodder going up is responsible for this raise, based on a Mother Dairy spokesperson's information to PTI.

Mehngaai won't keep me off the Mithai!😂

Vodafone seems to be losing its connection, as it faces a reduction in headcounts on two fronts; subscribers and employees. Vodafone Idea's spending on employees has fallen from ₹2,030 crore to ₹1,735 crore, even though the median salary for its employees has gone up 8.1%. This lopsided change results from a 35% fall in permanent employees over the last 4 years.

While Vodafone Idea suffers on these fronts, Bharti Airtel seems to be the choice as people switch.