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India’s Passenger Vehicle Makers See Double Digit Growth Amid Improvement in Chip Shortage Issue: Details

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By Press Trust of India | Updated: 1 August 2022

Improvement in semiconductor shortage issue helped auto makers, including Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra, report single to high double-digit growth on Monday in their domestic passenger vehicles sales in July.

Other manufacturers, Kia India, Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM), Honda Cars India, Skoda Auto India, also reported robust growth in their domestic passenger vehicle sales with the auto industry estimated to have achieved the highest-ever passenger vehicle wholesales in July this year.

Maruti Suzuki India said its domestic passenger vehicle sales rose 6.82 percent last month to 1,42,850 units compared to 1,33,732 units in July 2021.

“The shortage of electronic components had a minor impact on the production of vehicles, mainly in domestic models,” the company said in a statement.

The company’s sales were driven mainly by compact cars, including Baleno, Celerio, Dzire, Ignis, Swift, Tour S, and WagonR, which rose to 84,818 units in July 2022 from 70,268 units in the year-ago month.

Sales of mini cars — comprising Alto and S-Presso — grew to 20,333 units last month, up from 19,685 units in July 2021. However, sales of utility vehicles —including Brezza, Ertiga, S-Cross and XL6 — were lower at 23,272 units compared to 32,272 units.

“The overall industry sales stood at over 3.42 lakh units last month as compared with 2.94 lakh units in July 2021. This is the highest wholesale figure we have ever seen in the industry,” MSI India Senior Director (Marketing and Sales) Shashank Srivastava told PTI.

The previous best wholesales stood at 3.34 lakh units in October 2020, he said, adding, it has been possible due to better production as chip shortage eased a bit.

The industry is expected to cross 37 lakh unit sales mark this fiscal, which is going to be the highest ever, he noted.

Another major player Hyundai Motor India said its domestic sales were at 50,500 units last month, 5.1 percent higher than 48,042 units sold in July 2021.

“With the improvement in the semiconductor situation, the passenger vehicle segment is showing positive trends riding on the green shoots of pent-up demand and customer desire towards personal mobility,” HMIL Director (Sales, Marketing & Service) Tarun Garg said.

Tata Motors posted a 57 percent increase in its domestic passenger vehicles sales at 47,505 units as compared to 30,185 units in the year-ago month. The company’s passenger electric vehicle sales also rose to 4,022 units last month from 604 units in July 2021, the company said.

Similarly, Mahindra & Mahindra reported a 33 percent increase in domestic passenger vehicles sales in July this year at 28,053 units as against 21,046 units in the same month last year, driven by its utility vehicles.

M&M’s domestic utility vehicle sales during the month were at 27,854 units, as against 20,797 units in the year-ago month, up 34 percent, while sales of cars and vans were down 20 percent at 199 units, as compared to 249 units a year ago.

“The supply chain situation continues to remain dynamic, and we are monitoring the situation closely,” M&M President, Automotive Division, Veejay Nakra said.

Kia India also reported a 47 percent increase in its wholesales to 22,022 units in July as compared to 15,016 units in July 2021.

Gradual improvement in the supply chain and continued demand for the brand is adding momentum to the company’s growth, Kia India Vice President & Head of Sales and Marketing Hardeep Singh Brar said.

Another automobile manufacturer Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) reported its highest-ever dispatches in a month at 19,693 units in July. This was 50 percent more than 13,105 units it had sold in July 2021.

Skoda Auto also reported a 44 percent increase in its wholesales at 4,447 units in July as compared to 3,080 units sold in July 2021.

“This is usually the period where big purchases are kept on hold as it’s the monsoon and deferred till the festive season kicks off. Yet, we have clocked in solid numbers on the back of our made-for-India, INDIA 2.0 cars, the Kushaq and the Slavia,” Skoda Auto India Brand Director Zac Hollis said.

Honda Cars India reported a 12 percent increase in domestic sales last month at 6,784 units.

The maker of City and Amaze also exported 2,104 units last month.

The company had reported sale of 6,055 units in the domestic market and 918 units in overseas markets in July last year.

On the other hand, MG Motor India reported a 5 percent decline in retail sales at 4,013 units in July as production impacted by supply chain constraints. The company had registered retail sales of 4,225 units in the same month last year.

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Amazon’s India, South Asia Head of Cloud Division, Puneet Chandok, Resigns: Details

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The news came over two weeks after Amazon's cloud computing unit revealed plans to invest $12.87 billion in India by 2030.
By Reuters | Updated: 2 June 2023

The India and South Asia head of Amazon.com’s cloud division, Puneet Chandok, has resigned with effect from August 31, the company said on Friday.

Chandok had taken the helm of Amazon Web Services in June 2019.

Vaishali Kasture, currently head of the enterprise for mid-market and global businesses at AWS India and South Asia, would take on the role of interim leader of commercial business for the unit, Amazon India said.

The news came over two weeks after Amazon’s cloud computing unit revealed plans to invest $12.87 billion (roughly Rs. 10,60,12 crore) in India by 2030, doubling down on its past investments to cater to the growing demand for such services in Asia’s No. 3 economy.

The interim provides an opportunity for other cloud companies such as Azure and Google Cloud Platform, along with homegrown players, to make aggressive bids for accounts, said Akshara Bassi, an analyst at Counterpoint Research.

In April, AWS released a suite of technologies aimed at helping other companies develop their own chatbots and image-generation services backed by artificial intelligence.

The firm also partnered with startup Hugging Face, a software development hub, in February to make it easier to carry out artificial intelligence work (AI) in Amazon’s cloud.

AWS, the biggest cloud computing provider, already offers tools to help developers create AI-based software, including proprietary computing chips for raining AI algorithms on huge amounts of data at lower cost than rivals to services that reduce how much time it takes to create a chatbot or other AI products.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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Entertainment

Netflix, Disney, Amazon, JioCinema to Challenge Tobacco Warning Rules for Streaming Services in India

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Representatives of the four services recently met to discuss legally challenging the new rules.
By Reuters | Updated: 2 June 2023

Streaming giants Netflix, Amazon, and Disney on Friday privately discussed a possible legal challenge and other ways to stall India’s new tobacco warning rules, amid fears they will need to edit millions of hours of existing web content, sources said. The pushback is the latest headache for streaming giants in India, a top growth market. Companies often face legal cases and police complaints their content sometimes hurts religious sentiment, and many have self-censored content over the years. As part of India’s anti-tobacco drive, the health ministry this week ordered streaming platforms should within three months insert static health warnings during smoking scenes.

Also, India wants at least 50 seconds of anti-tobacco disclaimers, including an audio-visual, at the start and in the middle of each program. In the first signs of industry distress, executives of the three global streaming companies, and India’s Viacom18 which runs billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s JioCinema app, held a closed-door meeting, where Netflix said the rules would hit customer experience and push production houses to block their content in India, according to two sources familiar with the discussions.

Executives in India also discussed ways of a possible legal challenge to assert that other ministries – IT and information & broadcasting – have powers over streaming giants, and not the health ministry, said one of the sources. The companies, and India’s health ministry, did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reuters is the first to report the industry’s planned pushback.

Already, all smoking and alcohol-drinking scenes in movies in India’s cinemas and on TV, under the law, require health warnings, but so far there were no regulations for the streaming giants, whose content has become increasingly popular. In 2013, Woody Allen stopped his film, Blue Jasmine, from being screened in India after learning about mandatory anti-tobacco warnings would be inserted into its smoking scenes. Activists have welcomed new anti-tobacco rules by India, the world’s second-largest producer of tobacco that kills 1.3 million people each year in the country. India also has stringent cigarette pack warning rules.

HEALTH VS WARNINGS “HARASSMENT”

Truth Initiative, a public health nonprofit group, in March, said 60 percent of the 15 most popular streaming shows among 15- to 24-year-olds it analyzed contained depictions of tobacco, “effectively exposing 25 million young people to tobacco imagery” in 2021. But in India, companies from Netflix to Amazon to Disney, also have popular Hindi content which often shows Bollywood actors smoking, something activists say encourages tobacco use.

India is a hot market for streaming giants, and executives fear business impact and higher costs. Ambani’s JioCinema has just in recent weeks signed multiple content deals with NBCUniversal and Warner Bros, bringing popular shows like ‘Succession’ and ‘The Office’ to its platform. Together, the companies have millions of hours of content.

“New content being created needs to be changed and old content needs to be modified. It could require insertion of ad-type warning in between,” said Kaushik Moitra, partner at Bharucha & Partners who advises streaming firms and production houses. During the Friday meeting, Amazon and other companies made the point there was no way films can be edited in three months, said the second source, adding the industry decided to consult lawyers and write letters in protest.

Dylan Mohan Gray, a filmmaker who directed documentaries such as ‘Fire in the Blood’, said the new Indian rules amount to ‘harassment’, saying that murder, war, and extremely violent crime scenes were not regulated in the same way. “Smoking, which though certainly a serious public health problem, is both legal and a massive source of government revenue in this country,” he said.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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E-Commerce Platform Meesho Crosses 500 Million App Downloads on Google Play, App Store

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The company has achieved the 500 million download milestone in six years.
By Press Trust of India | Updated: 2 June 2023

E-commerce platform Meesho has become the world’s “fastest shopping app” to cross 500 million cumulative downloads across Google Play and iOS App Store, mobile data analytics provider has said.
The company has achieved the 500 million download milestone in six years, data.ai, formerly known as App Annie, said in a statement.

According to data.ai, over half of Meesho app downloads (274 million) came in 2022.

“Indian e-commerce platform Meesho has emerged as the world’s fastest shopping app to cross 500 million cumulative downloads across Google Play and iOS App Store combined, reaching this milestone in six years,” data.ai said.

According to data.ai, with just 13.6 MB size, Meesho’s android app is the lightest e-commerce app in India on Play Store, which makes it compatible with low-end smartphones.

“We are delighted to partner with them and provide them with the insights they need to continue to grow their business,” data.ai, Head of Insights, Lexi Sydow said.

Meesho, CXO for user growth, Megha Agarwal said India has 750-800 million people with smartphones and internet access, and it presents a huge opportunity for the company to spark the next wave of e-commerce adoption in India.

“This milestone is a great validation of our User-First mantra, which helps us continuously spot and address customer pain points to deliver an immaculate online shopping experience,” Agarwal said.

Earlier, Meesho announced that it recorded 140 million annual transacting users on its platform in 2022.

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Internet

Judge Dismisses Cambridge Analytica Privacy Lawsuit Against Facebook Parent Meta

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The judge said Facebook's policies had disclosed how third parties may get user data.
By Reuters | Updated: 2 June 2023

A 2018 privacy lawsuit brought by Washington, DC, against Facebook owner Meta Platforms, was dismissed on Thursday by a Superior Court judge, who ruled the firm did not mislead consumers over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The lawsuit alleged a violation of the district’s consumer protection law.

The social media firm drew global scrutiny in 2018 after disclosing that a third-party personality quiz distributed on Facebook gathered profile information on 87 million users worldwide and sold the data to British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

“While the district may disagree with Facebook’s approach to the situation, there is no legal basis that required Facebook to act differently,” Judge Maurice Ross of the Superior Court for the District of Columbia said in his ruling.

The judge said Facebook’s policies had disclosed how third parties may get user data and the social media platform also gave instructions on how to limit sharing of data.

“Facebook did not materially mislead consumers as to their response to Cambridge Analytica,” the judge said on Thursday.

The District of Columbia attorney general’s office said it disagreed with the court’s decision and was considering options.

Meta did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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Dell Beats Quarterly Estimates After Cost Cuts Despite 20 Percent Drop in Revenue

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The results contrasted rivals HP and Lenovo Group, but a full recovery remains some ways off.
By Reuters | Updated: 2 June 2023

Better cost controls helped Dell Technologies beat estimates for first-quarter profit on Thursday, a positive sign for personal computer makers after months of cratering demand.

The results contrasted rivals HP and Lenovo Group, but a full recovery remains some ways off as Dell forecast current-quarter revenue below Wall Street targets and warned that IT spending would stay cautious.

Shares of the company were down 2 percent after the bell, reversing gains of 5 percent. The stock was briefly halted during regular trading hours when the company announced results earlier than scheduled.

“We maintained pricing discipline, reduced operating expenses, and our supply chain continued to perform well after normalizing ahead of competitors,” said Chuck Whitten, co-chief operating officer of Dell.

Total operating expenses fell 6 percent to $3.57 billion (roughly Rs. 28,826 crore) during the first quarter.

The company’s revenue dropped 20 percent to $20.92 billion (roughly Rs. 1,72,30,339 crore) but came in above analysts’ expectations of $20.27 billion (roughly Rs. 1,66,91,838 crore), according to Refinitiv data.

Demand for desktops and laptops slumped after a pandemic-driven rush for work-from-home equipment, leading to a pile-up in inventory amid an uncertain economic outlook.

Dell’s client solutions unit – home to its consumer and enterprise PC business – posted a 23 percent fall in sales, while the infrastructure solutions unit, which includes servers, storage devices, and networking hardware, saw an 18 percent decline.

Excluding items, Dell earned $1.31 (roughly Rs. 108) per share, compared with estimates of 86 cents.

The Texas-based company expects second-quarter revenue to be between $20.2 billion (roughly Rs. 166,31,892 crore) and $21.2 billion (roughly Rs. 1,74,55,126), below expectations of $21.2 billion (roughly Rs. 1,74,55,126) at the midpoint.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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Elon Musk Reclaims Position as World’s Richest Person After Bernard Arnault’s Louis Vuitton Shares Drop

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Index data showed behind Musk and Arnault are Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates at $144 billion and $125 billion, respectively.
By ANI | Updated: 1 June 2023

Elon Musk has yet again claimed his position as the world’s richest person after beating the CEO of the French luxury brand Louis Vuitton Bernard Arnault, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as of Thursday, Musk’s net worth was about $192 billion (roughly Rs. 15,82,483 crore), with Arnault’s $187 billion (roughly Rs. 15,41,272 crore).

Index data showed behind Musk and Arnault are Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates at $144 billion (roughly Rs. 11,86,862 crore) and $125 billion (roughly Rs. 10,30,262 crore), respectively.

The index is a daily ranking of the world’s wealthiest people. Details about the calculations are provided in the net worth analysis on each billionaire’s profile page. The figures are updated at the close of every trading day in New York.

Tesla chief Musk is back on top of the list of wealthiest persons after shares of Arnault’s firm fell over 2 percent in the latest trade.

The rise in Musk’s wealth can also be partly attributed to the latest surge in Tesla stock prices. They rose about 89 percent so far in 2023, data showed.

Musk and Arnault have been neck-and-neck on the list of the richest people.

In December 2022, Bernard Arnault reportedly overtook the Tesla head when he was in the second spot for more than two months. Musk reclaimed again in late February.

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