Vitara Brezza lifts Maruti Suzuki’s fortunes in FY17

Maruti Suzuki said its revenue increased 20.3% in the three months from January to March this year compared to the same quarter last year, while net profit jumped 16%. “Growth in volumes, increase in share of the Company’s higher segment models, benefits due to full capacity utilization and cost reduction efforts contributed to increase in […]

Zee Entertainment takes Bollywood to Mexico with new channel

Zee Entertainment Enterprises entered the Latin American market with the launch of its Spanish-language Bollywood movie channel, Zee Mundo in Mexico and Ecuador. The channel offers Bollywood movies, telenovelas and series. Other countries in the region will be addressed in coming months, the company indicated. ZEE is the first-ever Indian broadcaster to take mainstream channels […]

Anil Ambani group relaunches Bigflix to take on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video

The Anil Ambani Group has relaunched Bigflix, the homegrown competitor to Netflix, with an expanded focus covering regional language content as well as an eye on audiences outside India. The service will have 2000 HD movies in nine Indian languages to start with, the group said. These languages are Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Malayalam, Gujarati, […]

All liquor shops in Tamil Nadu to remain shut for 3 months

The Madras High Court has asked the government of Tamil Nadu not to open any liquor shops for three months after complaints that it did not comply with the Supreme Court order on relocating roadside liquor shops. Unlike in most states in India, alchohol shops in Tamil Nadu are run directly by the state government under a […]

Glaucus questions stock price of Hong Kong-listed Fullshare Holdings Ltd

Glaucus Research Group, a California-based short seller, said it was selling Hong Kong-listed developer Fullshare Holdings due to peculiar trading patterns seen in the stock’s counter. “Fullshare is supposedly a commercial and residential property developer, but this business is tiny compared to its market capitalization. In FY 2016, Fullshare generated a paltry RMB 132 million […]

Reliance Jio to start trial services for fiber soon across India

Reliance Jio, the biggest carrier of wireless data in the world, said it will expand beta trials of its fiber-to-the-home services in the ‘next few months’ across India. It has already started these trials in “a few locations”, which would be expanded city by city. According to market sources, the company has such trials ongoing […]

RCom shareholders approve Aircel merger

The shareholders of Reliance Communications approved the demerger of the wireless operations of the company into Aircel Limited and Dishnet Wireless Limited, the Anil Ambani Group company said. The Scheme was also approved at a meeting called on the directions of the National Company Law Tribunal. The shareholders of Aircel Limited also approved the scheme on April 22nd. […]

Why Reliance Jio will keep data prices low for 2 years: Credit Suisse explains

Wireless data prices in India, which crashed from Rs 250 per GB to about Rs 10 per GB after the entry of Reliance Jio, will continue to remain under pressure for at least two more years, said analyst firm Credit Suisse. That is the minimum amount of time that the new entrant will take to […]

Net Neutrality: Vodafone wants right to manipulate Internet videos

Vodafone India said it would like to be given the power to manage the size of videos watched by users on its mobile network and lower it automatically “for overall quality welfare”. Participating in the discussions related to Net Neutrality and the powers to be given to telecom operators in traffic management, the company said it did […]

Telcos Change Tack as Net Neutrality Fight Enters Final Round in India

If you thought the fight over net neutrality was over with the sending of 1 mln emails to the TRAI two years ago, think again. The telecom service providers, who lost out that in the first round, are back. This time, however, their demands are more subtle, and focused on getting specific services exempted from […]

Amazon Fire TV Stick Launch: Airtel offers 100 GB data free

Bharti Airtel said it would provide 100 GB of free high-speed data to anyone who purchases Amazon’s Fire TV Stick in India. The offer is available to Airtel customers on broadband as well as ‘4G Home Wifi’, but not to normal, handset-based 4G users. The data quota can be availed in buckets of 35 GB […]

Spectranet enters NOIDA with truly unlimited 50 Mbps at Rs 1,199

Spectranet, which provides among the most affordable fiber-to-the-home services for high-volume users in India, said it had entered the Noida market. The company has started by providing broadband services in Sector 93 with more areas being added rapidly, it said. Among the plans being offered in NOIDA include a range of ‘truly unlimited plans’ that do […]

Indian IT industry facing layoffs as conditions worsen, warns Assocham

Indian IT companies are bound to see “some laying off” of their work force back home due to various negative forces impacting the industry, Assocham — an association of various industries — warned. “With the US tightening the norms for H-1B visas under the President Donald Trump’s ‘Buy American, Hire American’ campaign, the Indian IT […]

After Cognizant, Wipro employees on edge as annual appraisal starts

Employees of Wipro Ltd are nervous as the information technology giant has kicked off its annual appraisal process this month. The first of the several reviews, known as L1 or level 1, has been completed, and at least some employees are feeling the pressure. “I’ve got to know that I have been marked as NI […]

WATCH LIVE – Moving towards a less visa-dependent model : TCS

Tata Consultancy Services has reported Q4 revenue of Rs 29,642 cr, a decline of 0.3%, and said his company will wait and see about new US visa regulations that are scheduled to come out today. NEW VISA RULES On new visa regulations expected today, Gopinathan said TCS will ‘wait and see’ what kind of rules are […]

Complaints against telcos drop sharply as 4G takes off

Complaints against all telecom providers except Bharti Airtel dropped in 2016, possibly in reaction to the emergence of new operator Reliance Jio and the explosion of 4G data capacity. The total number of complaints lodged with the regulator TRAI against telecom firms dropped 15% in 2016 to 19,774 from 23,293 in 2015 and 20,386 in […]

SpiceJet chooses HSBC as its UPI partner

SpiceJet has chosen HSBC Bank as its partner for receiving UPI payments on its website. UPI or Unified Payments Interface is an advanced, easy-to-use, cheap and real-time payment platform designed by the National Payments Corporation of India. Unlike more expensive payment options such as Visa and Mastercard, UPI is available to most banking users in […]