Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Adidas Appoints Damyant Singh as its Brand Director in India: German sportswear major Adidas Group has appointed Damyant Singh as its Brand Director in India. Damyant will report directly to Dave Thomas, the Group's Managing Director in India. He succeeds Tushar Goculdas, who was recently appointed as the Brand Director-Adidas Emerging Markets. “Damyant is a very experienced marketing professional and has broad experience and strong knowledge of the Adidas brand, the Indian sports market and consumers. “I am very confident that with him leading the marketing for Adidas in India, we will see the brand reach new heights in the coming months and years,“ Thomas said.

• Race for Kesoram's Tyre Unit Hots Up as Apollo Enters Fray: Two of India's leading tyre makers, Madras Rubber Factory (MRF), the country's largest tyre manufacturer, and Onkar Kanwarled Apollo Tyres are battling it out to acquire the main tyre unit of BK Birla flagship Kesoram Industries, raising the possibility of a bidding war for the factory which is located in Uttarakhand. While MRF was the front-runner for the asset, Apollo Tyres has recently entered the fray, said multiple sources aware of the ongoing negotiations. For both Apollo and MRF, the acquisition will consolidate its manufacturing presence in the north Indian market and get a stronger grip over the commercial vehicles tyre segment where they are the number 1 and 2 players, respectively. The next one week is expected to be crucial. According to the sources cited earlier, on Monday , the promoters of Apollo and Kesoram are expected to meet in New Delhi to discuss the matter. Later in the day , Kesoram's management is also scheduled to meet with its consortium of lenders to get their approvals to hive off the tyre plant to a drop down subsidiary . This is expected to facilitate the monetisation exercise and improve the net worth of Kesoram, which is a listed company . Interestingly , both MRF and Kesoram have separately called for a board meeting on February 12 to announce its quarterly financial numbers, triggering speculation that a deal between the two is imminent, barring a compelling last-minute counter offer from Apollo. 

• HUL Tests Online Waters with Direct Selling Switch: Hindustan Unilever (HUL) has changed the operating model of its direct-selling business, Hindustan Unilever Network, paving the way for a likely debut in e-commerce. “The Hindustan Unilever Network business model has transitioned from physical servicing to an online ordering and fulfillment model,“ an HUL spokesperson said. Consumers can buy the Aviance and Lever Ayush range of health and beauty products through HUL network consultants, who will operate only online now and will no longer have any physical offices. HUL did not provide additional details. The maker of Dove soap and Surf detergent, which launched the direct-selling division in 2003 to offer high-value home and beauty-care products, attributed the change in model to “optimising operating costs and making the business more competitive.“ Analysts said HUL may be testing the waters in the ecommerce space and could evolve into selling everything from detergents to deodorants online -a small but rapidly growing business in India. Unilever chief executive Paul Polman had said in an interview last week: “Over the next few years, our global e-commerce business will approach the size of HUL's business...it won't be small. However, we believe e-commerce should be done through distributors rather than on one's own.“

• Jet Offers More Free Miles on Vistara Routes: Jet Airways continues to take on Vistara aggressively, now offering more privileges and benefits under its frequent flyer programme specifically on routes flown by the full-service carrier of Tatas and Singapore Airlines. Jet Airways has announced triple its normal free miles under the JPMiles programme on business class and double the base JPMiles on economy class bookings for travel till March 31. The “promotion is applicable for travel between Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad Sectors only“, it said on its website. Vistara, the third full-service airline in India after Air India and Jet Airways, started its operations on January 9 with flights from Delhi to Mumbai and Ahmedabad. It has faced stiff, though somewhat subtle, competition from incumbent players. Low-cost flier, IndiGo, for instance, chose the Mumbai-Ahmedabad sector ₹1,799 when it refor its lowest fare of ` cently introduced discounted fares.

• World Cup Brings Bonanza for Travel Cos as 6,000 Indians Fly Down Under: Close to 6,000 Indians will fly to Australia to watch the cricket World Cup starting next weekend, and tour operators say Indian cricket fans have generously loosened their purse strings to buy special holiday packages around the event. “These sports events are the new holiday (and) travel destinations of well-heeled Indians, especially the superrich,“ said T C Guruprasad, managing director at Cen trum Direct , which has processed around 500 visas for Australia for the world cup through its travel arm Club7 Holidays. “For a minimum one match holiday people are ₹1.5 lakh wherespending close to ` as those planning an Australian holiday around the matches are ₹12 lakh,“ he added.spending up to ` Dr B N Raghukumar, a doctor based in Mumbai, will take a 12day tour of Australia with seven family members. Not only has he booked the best seats inside the stadium for the India-Pakistan match on February 15, but also ensured top hotels for stay. “Centrum helped me customise our holiday around the India-Pakistan match and let us choose hotels of our choice like Palazzo Versace at Gold Coast (Queensland), Four Seasons in Sydney and in Sydney and Crowne Plaza in Melbourne,“ he said. The group is spending ₹25.69 lakh in all.

• Colgate, Dabur Outshine HUL in Oral Care: A major shakeup is underway in the Rs 6,200crore oral care market with Hindustan Unilever losing ground, with homegrown Dabur eating into its market share and Colgate-Palmolive consolidating its leadership. As per research firm Nielsen's data on the domestic toothpaste market, HUL has been losing market share. While category leader Colgate-Palmolive gained volume market share in 2014 at 56.7% as against 55.9% in 2013, HUL's share declined to 21.5% from 22.8% in 2013. Market share of HUL's both brands, Pepsodent and Close Up, dipped during the period. Dabur also gained volume market share from its brands Dabur Red and Meswak in 2014 to 13.4% from 12% in the previous year. Analysts blame HUL's “wrong strategy“ of just focussing on two brands -Pepsodent and Close Up -while rivals have focussed on product innovation and offering a bouquet, specially after the entry of P&G into the segment albeit with little initial success.

• Faasos Food Set to Raise Rs 120 Crore: Faasos Food Services, a technology-focused quick-service restaurant chain backed by Sequoia Capital, is raising $20 million (₹120 crore) in a fresh round of funding led by Lightbox Ventures. This is the highest fund-raising by a homegrown QSR chain and a shot in the arm for local startup eateries that have lately seen investor interest wane. Fundraising comprises a $16 million equity investment by Lightbox and Sequoia, and a $4 million debt. Pune-based Faasos, which hawks wraps and biryanis from 90 outlets across six cities, will use the funds to add 10 cities over the next 12 months.It expects to cross ₹100 crore in revenue by March 2016. “We expect to break even by March 2018 on revenues of ₹450 crore,“ Jaydeep Barman, founder and CEO of Faasos, told ET. Much of this growth, said Barman, will come on the back of extensive investments the company has made in technology and data analytics in the past couple of years. “Anything hab years. “Anything habit-forming is more susceptible to technological disruption,“ said Barman, a former McKinsey and Co executive who founded Faasos in 2004 with Indian Institute of Management-Lucknow batchmate Kallol Banerjee.

• Marico to Revamp its Strategy, Eyes 20% Growth: Homegrown FMCG firm Marico is revamping strategy for its youth category products such as hair care items and deodorants and aiming for up to 20% growth after witnessing stagnation. The company, which sells youth brands such as Set Wet, Zatak and Livon in hair care and deodorant categories, is focussing on innovation to accelerate sales growth. In an investor update, Marico said in the short to medium term outlook, it would “revamp strategy and drive innovation in the youth portfolio to enable growth at about 15% to 20%“.

• Cisco says Key Bengaluru Unit has filed 800+ Patents: India plays a key role in the development of new products and solutions at networking giant Cisco with its Bengaluru unit filing over 800 patents till date, a senior executive said. The US-based firm spent about $6.3 billion or 13.4% of FY14 revenues on R&D globally. “From being a centre for cost advantage to a skill pool, India has today become a centre of innovation for us. The impact that India is creating is phenomenal and every solution that we have, India has an imprint on it,“ said Cisco executive vice president and chief development officer Pankaj Patel.

• Hero's Unisex Scooter to Take on Honda's Activa: Having consolidated its pole position in the face of stiff competition, Hero MotoCorp wants to take the battle to its arch rival's stronghold. With scooter sales outpacing motorcycles in the domestic two-wheeler market, Hero MotoCorp has decided to expedite the launch of a slew of scooters, including a unisex scooter developed on a new platform that will be pitched against Honda's best-selling Activa. Hero's strategy is to quickly bring in new scooters and tap the stupendous growth in the sector, which at 21% for the fiscal, makes it the fastest across segments in the Indian automotive market, according to two highly placed industry executives familiar with the development. “Hero is aiming to cater to every customer segment and hence it wants to build an arsenal of scooters in the short to medium term and has expedited the launch of these new scooters to be launched ahead of its new motorcycles. This is a strategic call taken by the company,“ a top industry executive told ET on condition of anonymity.

• Mum-Dubai busiest route in 2014: The Mumbai-Dubai sector was the busiest international city pair for travel to and from India last year.With as many as 17.5 lakh people flying between these two cities, closely followed by 13.6 lakh between Delhi and Dubai, the Emirate emerged as the destination most frequented by Indians . Dubai saw a whopping 84.5 lakh people flying to and from India last year, way ahead of the second spot of almost 44 lakh occupied by the rest of UAE -of which it too is a part. London, Bangkok, Singapore and Kathmandu were the other major destinations or transit points for Indian globetrotters last year. India is an important market for all airlines as interna tional travel has been constantly growing in the past few years. Forget metros, even small towns are generating huge volumes of traffic.For instance, 4.5 lakh people flew between Sharjah and Kochi last year. Thiruvananthapuram and Dubai saw 4.7 lakh people flying between them last year. Pune, Varanasi and Amritsar also saw substantial numbers flying to overseas destinations.

• Ratan Tata invests in CarDekho: Ratan Tata has made a personal investment in auto classifieds portal CarDekho, once again reaffirming his bullishness around India's rapidly growing digital consumption story . Last year, Tata took a wager on Delhi-based e-commerce biggie Snapdeal followed by jewellery e-tailer Bluestone and online furniture retailer Urban Ladder amid a rush of funds into the thriving consumer internet sector. The 76-year-old chairman emeritus of Tata Sons, the holding company of the $100billion steel-to-software conglomerate Tata Group, has subscribed to fresh shares of the Jaipur-based GirnarSoft which owns and operates CarDekho.com, BikeDekho.com and PriceDekho.com. TOI could not ascertain the exact size of Tata's investment.However, like Tata's previous deals, all of which have been in his personal capacity , this too will be a small minority stake for him in the venture.The real significance of all his investments in new-age internet companies has been in the endorsement that Tata brings along for these fledg ling enterprises.

• Air India Reports Strong Performance in Jan 2015: An over 16% growth in its passenger traffic helped national carrier Air India improve its ticket revenue by 8.4%, which stood at . 1,500 crore in January over the period last ` year, an airline official said on Sunday. Meanwhile, the carrier has also lined up sumptuous Indian cuisines, named after popular cricketers, to cater to its passengers on its flights to Australia for ICC World Cup there. Air India has clocked a higher seat factor on its both national and domestic network during this period as well, the official said. Medanta Group to Invest Rs 1,500 Cr in Next Five Years

• Websites to Start Selling Properties Online: Realty websites firms are making a daunting leap into e-commerce. Housing.com and Snapdeal, both backed by Japan's Softbank, are building technology and teams to sell new properties online to tap India's billion-dollar real estate market. To instill customer trust in a high-risk market, the companies banking on wealth of data, offline partners and brand recognition. “Selling houses online isn't an easy problem to solve,“ said Advitiya Sharma, cofounder Housing.com. “It was because of the lack of a focused realty technology product that selling real estate online hadn't picked up.“ The Mumbai-based company sold 115 apartments online for Tata Value Homes, generating gross merchandise value of at . 50 crore over five days. The least ` website also launched a technol ogy called `Slice View' that allows users to go through each floor of a building project; hovering over a particular flat shows availability and built-up area. For this year, Housing.com al ready has 500 builder campaigns in the pipeline.

International:

• Alibaba to invest $590 mln in smartphone maker Meizu: Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said in a statement on Monday it will buy a minority stake in domestic smartphone maker Meizu Technology Co. for $590 million. Alibaba didn’t disclose how much of the privately owned handset maker it will acquire. The deal will help Alibaba push its mobile operating system within China through Meizu’s handsets, while giving Meizu access to Alibaba’s e-commerce sales channels and other resources, the companies said in a joint statement.

• Poundland seeks to buy 99p Stores for £55m: Budget retailer Poundland has said it wants to buy 99p Stores for £55m, subject to approval by competition authorities. The two firms have signed a conditional deal for £47.5m in cash and £7.5m in shares. The sale, should it go through, includes 99p Stores' network of 251 shops, which trade as 99p Stores and Family Bargains. Discounters in the UK have been taking market share from supermarkets.

• Sweaty Betty Receives Catterton Investment: Premium U.K. activewear brand Sweaty Betty has received a “strategic growth investment” for an undisclosed amount from Catterton, a private equity firm. The company’s founders Tamara Hill-Norton, creative director, and Simon Hill-Norton, chief executive officer, will remain with the company and continue to lead the management team. Jon Owsley, a Catterton partner, described the brand as “cutting edge style, high quality and superior performance.” He said Catterton saw a “tremendous opportunity to build on these strengths and to extend Sweaty Betty’s reach in both new and existing markets.”

• Averyl Oates to Leave Galeries Lafayette: Averyl Oates has resigned as commercial director, fashion divisions at Galeries Lafayette and BHV Marais. Oates joined the French retailer 18 months ago, and according to a letter from the company seen by WWD, she was “deeply involved in the transformation plan currently in progress, Ambitions 2020, and in the refurbishment of the future Haussmann flagship men’s wear store to be opened in the second half of 2015.” Oates could not be reached for comment. She will continue to oversee the buying for the autumn-winter 2015 season, and her replacement will be announced in the coming weeks.

• Brands Using Apps to Court Their Best Customers: The smallest screen is shaping up to be the most important one. And on that screen it’s the app that offers brands the most effective way to cater to their best customers. Consumers are doing nearly everything on their mobile devices — from managing the minutia of their daily lives to browsing, comparing prices and buying. Mobile sales grew 36 percent last year to about $49 billion, according to Adobe Digital Index, which found that more than half of mobile transactions took place on tablets, although smartphones are catching up and are expected to eclipse tablets this year. “Smartphones already drive a higher share of visits to U.S. retailers compared to tablets, and with larger screen phones becoming more mainstream, we expect that more consumers will shop rather than just browse on their smartphones,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst at Adobe.

• Weekend Shutdown Raises West Coast Ports' Stakes: In a move that could worsen the congestion at the West Coast ports and cost importers up to $3.8 billion in excess costs this year amid protracted negotiations over a crucial labor contract, the Pacific Maritime Association suspended operations to unload containers off ships over the weekend. The association, which includes 72 multinational cargo carriers and terminal operators, said Friday afternoon that containers were not to be moved on or off vessels docked at 29 ports on Saturday and Sunday. It made the decision in response to what it views as slowdowns orchestrated by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which has been embroiled with the employers’ association over the past nine months in talks to finalize a new contract affecting 20,000 dockworkers. “After three months of union slowdowns, it makes no sense to pay extra for less work,” said a PMA spokesman, “especially if there is no end in sight to the union’s actions, which needlessly brought West Coast ports to the brink of gridlock.”

• NYFW Economic Impact Close to $900M a Year: Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D., N.Y.) said that was her reaction to the economic impact made by New York Fashion Week — which alone totals almost $900 million a year — and the industry as a whole that was indicated by the results of a study she had put together as the newly appointed ranking member of the House Joint Economic Committee. Maloney, a founding member of the Congressional Apparel Manufacturing and Fashion Business Caucus, told WWD that while she was aware how important the fashion industry was, “until I started working on this report, I didn’t realize the importance of the fashion industry to our country and New York City. “It really astounded me,” she said. “As my first report as the ranking Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee, I wanted to do it on fashion, and what I found out blew me away.”

Tech:

• Samsung Leads Mobile Phone Market, But Losing Grip: CMR: Samsung may be the leader in the burgeoning Indian mobile market, but the Korean handset giant is losing ground in one of the world's largest markets as it faces stiff competition from rivals like Micromax, Karbonn, Lava and Microsoft (Nokia). According to the latest data from CyberMedia Research (CMR), Samsung is “losing its earlier firm grip“ with its share declining to 16.5% at the end of December 2014 from 20.3% at the beginning of the year. According to the research firm's India Monthly Mobile Handsets Market Review for calendar year 2014, India mobile handsets market grew by 4% to 257 million units in terms of shipments over 2013. Of this, Samsung captured 16.5% of the shipments, followed by Micromax and Microsoft (Nokia) at 13.3% each, it added. “However, Samsung was seen to be losing its earlier firm grip on market, as its share of the market showed a downward trend during the year, as compared to Micromax that gained primarily in April-June 2014, but then continued to remain flat during the rest of the year,” CMR said in a statement. Samsung’s share of the overall market in January-March 2014 quarter stood at 20.3%, while that of Micromax was 11.2% and Microsoft (Nokia) was 17.6%. About 77 million smartphones were shipped in 2014, accounting for nearly 30% of the total mobile phone market in the country. The smartphones segment grew at 46% as against the previous year.

• Mobiliya in Talks with Army to Secure Handset Software: When the BJP was preparing for its election campaign in Maharashtra last year, the party's digital war room turned to a two-year-old startup, Mobiliya, to secure its data and communication. The BJP, wary of leaks, used the start-up to remotely lock phones, wipe entire data stacks if a phone was lost, encrypt emails, and block cameras and file transfers via Bluetooth. “Mobiliya Shoonya helped us seamlessly manage and monitor the devices of our key party co-workers,“ said Shweta Shalini, digital war room head, BJP Maharashtra. Shoonya is the startup's enterprise offering that allows clients to manage and control personal mobile phones in official establishments. Mobiliya, which has datacenters in India, is now in talks with the Indian Army to develop a rugged handset equipped with its secure software. While most cyber security firms operate at the application or app-level, Mobiliya works at the chipset and the framework level.

• Voice Price War, Rel Jio's 4G Launch may Check Rate Hikes: Mobile users don't need to fear that the upcoming spectrum auctions will push up tariffs this year, thanks to return of a voice price war and Reliance Jio Infocomm's impending 4G launch, but higher cost of airwaves post auctions may squeeze telcos' margins and drag their profits. An ET analysis reveals that for every ₹100 crore more an operator spends on buying airwaves over the reserve price its cost of hosting voice increases 0.8%-1.5% per minute, which will be built into pricing over the next three-five years. The upcoming airwaves sale, that will start on March 4, will likely increase telecom operators' costs by at least 10%, as per the ET analysis, but on recent evidence, it's unlikely that they will pass it on to consumers anytime soon. Competitive pressures on voice has already hurt revenues from the segment for leading players such as Vodafone India, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular over the last two quarters, say analysts. While Idea had cut voice rates in the second quarter ended September 30, 2014 -which helped it sell the most SIM cards in the October-December period -Airtel and Vodafone have been forced to keep tariffs steady to avoid losing users.

• Sistema Shyam Changes Tack, Targets Home Wi-Fi Market: Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL), which provides services under the MTS India brand, is tweaking its strategy by positioning itself as a home Wi-Fi provider. The company is seeking smartphone users on GSM networks to switch to its WiFi services when at home, by offering rates that are cheaper than what GSM players typically charge for 3G data. The local unit of Russia's Sistema provides telecom service on the CDMA platform, which has fewer takers compared with GSM.The company, which has airwaves in nine of India's 22 telecom zones, is therefore focusing more on dongle-based the data services. The CDMA technology is more suited for data services. “MTS is traditionally known as a data dongle provider. The plan is to now shift focus and be recognised as a Wi-Fi solutions provider in the Indian market,“ a top company executive told ET.

• Google Testing Shopping Help via Hangouts: When it comes to shopping for Google products, some people need help deciding what to buy. Google is reportedly testing a service that would allow customers to talk Android and Chromebook choices with a salesperson straight via Hangouts. TechCrunch reports that this new feature will team up potential buyers with Google sales associates via Hangouts. According to TechCrunch, the associates will tell you all about Android and Chromebook devices but oddly, not Nest products including Dropcam and Nest Protect. You can actually try out the service by navigating to the Devices section of Google Play, clicking on the help icon and selecting Video call. Happy shopping.

• Google Maps' Newest Feature Rewards You for More Reviews: Google has long battled Yelp to be your go-to place for restaurant and business recommendations, but it just doesn’t have as large a community of reviewers as Yelp. The search company is aiming to fix that with a Maps update introducing a new Local Guides feature. Replacing the old City Experts program, it’s essentially a rewards system for Google’s most prolific reviewers. There are currently four reward tiers. Users with 5+ reviews can arrange meetups and gain access to try out new Google products before relese. Once you cross 50 reviews, your submissions will be highlighted in the Maps app with a special badge, and you’ll gain access to exclusive events. At 200+ reviews, you could be featured on Google’s official social media accounts, as well as receive an annual thank you gift from the company. Yelp, of course, offers its own similar program known as Elite Squad, but it’s more exclusive than Google’s offering – reviewers need to submit an application and are selected on a case-by-case basis. This helps assure high-quality reviews, but the openness of Google’s take makes sense given its primary goal is increasing the number of people writing reviews.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Amazon to Parade Own Fashion Labels: Amazon plans to create its own brands in the booming fashion and lifestyle segment in the country, making India perhaps the first country where the US e-commerce giant has its own private fashion labels, two people familiar with the company's plans said. Amazon India is currently building a team for its private brands and has interviewed people from leading online fashion retailers Myntra and Jabong, one of them said. The other person said the US firm has already hired a couple of people for its private brands team, but is yet to find a person to head the business. An Amazon spokesperson, in an emailed reply to ET's queries, said, “As apolicy , we don't comment on what we may or may not do in the future.“ The US online retail giant has built a sizeable business in India, but in the booming fashion and lifestyle business it's playing catch up with the likes of Myntra and Jabong, which have already fairly big operations.

• Alibaba may enter Indian e- commerce soon, Jack Ma to visit this year: Alibaba’s chairman, Jack Ma, who visited India late last year as part of a Chinese business delegation, is set to return in August or September to raise the company’s presence in the country’s e- commerce market. Senior Alibaba executives are expected to join Ma during the visit. The Chinese ecommerce company announced its investment in India’s start- up Paytm last week. Alibaba’s co- founder Peng Lei is joining the board of Paytm, the country’s largest ewallet service provider. Ma, 50, an English teacher before starting Alibaba, was in India in November when he said Alibaba wanted to invest more in the country and was inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s approach.

• CarDekho. com cruises from two laptops to a mentor in Ratan Tata: Four months ago, the Jain brothers of Jaipur, Amit and Anurag, set their hearts on getting Tata Sons Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata on board as an advisor for their six- year- old online automobile portal, CarDekho. com. Tata’s understanding of the automobile sector and his credibility in the business world made him the best mentor. The idea to set up CarDekho. com was inspired by a visit to the Automobile Expo in Delhi. The portal was launched in 2008. Starting from a one- room set- up with just two laptops, it has reached a valuation of $300 million today. On Friday, the duo was in Mumbai to sign an undisclosed amount of investment from Tata, who didn’t agree to a board position on CarDekho. com, but “ promised” he would be available to speak to the Jains at least an hour a month and guide them. “We did not need money at this juncture but we wanted Tata as our mentor. So, once we decided this, we got in touch with our investor Sequoia Capital, who got us in touch with Tata’s team,” Amit Jain told Business Standard. “ So far, I have met him twice and his composure, humility and the knowledge he carries are what impressed me the most.” This unusual approach to finding an investor is not the first such move for the Jains. In 2007, after nearly eight years of working with Texas- based Trilogy, Amit Jain, a graduate from Indian Institute of Technology ( IIT) Delhi, abruptly quit his job and returned to Jaipur. He dabbled in his father’s gemstone business for some time after the latter’s death. “Once on ground, I realised it was so easy to advise my father about business strategies from an academic point of view. The devil lies in the detail,” he says.

• Jabong announces line-up for Jabong Online Fashion Week: The second season of Jabong Online Fashion Week (JOFW), a young talent-based showcase that serves as a platform to highlight new names from fashion design and related industries, is set to take place from Feb 11 to 17, 2015. The shop-able event will feature Spring/Summer creations from a selection of emerging designers who have been judged and picked on the basis of quality, innovation, marketability, originality and ability to legitimately take fashion to the next level. The selected names are Flirtatious by Aakriti Grover, Abhi Singh, Aesthetical Cubes, Jaya Misra, Jayati Goenka, Kanika Goyal, Lalit Sengar, Niharika Pandey, Niket Mishra, Poonam Bhagat, Preeti S Kapoor, Rahul Singh, Siddhartha Tytler, Sonia Jetleey, Sougat Paul and Nitya Bajaj.

• Malaysia Tourist Arrivals Up Nearly 10% in 2014: After a challenging year with two mishaps involving its national carrier, Malaysia has some good news to report for 2014, with inbound tourists growing 9.6% to 22.8 million from 20.8 million in the previous year. India, the sixth most important tourist market for Malaysia, also contributed to the growth in tourism, with the number of tourists to the country going up to 6.4 lakh from 5.3 lakh in 2013. The number of Chinese tourists to Malaysia, however, declined in 2014. Tourism Malaysia's deputy director general Dato' Haji Azizan Noordin told ET that the country changed its strategy after flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board in March last year.In July, flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine with 298 people on board. “Naturally, there was a direct impact from travellers from China. But to make up for that, we had a look at other potential markets. This year, we are expecting eight lakh Indian arrivals,“ said Dato' Azizan. “Unlike a few years ago, Indians are travelling throughout the year now and that makes India a strong outbound tourist market for short-haul neighbour destinations,“ he added.

• Your McDonald's Burger Just Lost Some Weight: McDonald's Indian menu is shedding some weight. The world's biggest restaurant chain has cut almost 50-60 calories on an average from all its burgers, about 40% of the fat content in sauces and roughly 20% sodium in fries in an effort to steer Indian consumers to lowercalorie choices. However, even with the bulk of its products now containing 810% fewer calories, it still doesn't fit into the `healthy meal' option. McDonald's Indian arm doesn't deny that and claims it is only trying to appeal to a larger consumer base and not appeasing extremely healthconscious customers. “This is also to make McDonald's a better option for consumers. You have to meet the needs of consumers. If consumers are going in this (health) direction, I can't stick to the opposite direction,“ said Amit Jatia, vice-chairman of Westlife Development, the operator of over 200 McDonald's and 30 McCafe outlets across western and southern India. With a common supply chain and product development team for McDonald's outlets across the country , the lower-calorie merchandise is also available in north and eastern India.

• Jet Airways delays Dreamliner take off: In a sign of further deferment of its $ 2.6- billion order for 10 Boeing 787- 9 Dreamliners, Jet Airways told investors in a post- earnings call on Monday that the fullservice airline has nothing on its order book till around 201718. The airline’s current focus is on increasing aircraft utilisation, cost cutting through contract re- negotiations and process improvements, and making existing routes profitable. “We are right now looking at more or less a flat fleet. We do have some lease expiries coming up, which we are looking to either extend or replace, but broadly, we are not looking at any substantial growth in our fleet. ( We have nothing) in the order book for the next two to three years,” Abhijit Dasgupta, vice- president (planning and alliances), said. Cramer Ball, chief executive officer, added, “ There is still an intense focus within our business on continuing efficiency, network rationalisation, productivity improvement as well as quality improvement.” Jet has 117 aircraft, including 10 under subsidiary JetLite. The development comes as asurprise because Jet, which placed the Dreamliner order in 2006, was expected to take deliveries from 2016. This itself was a deferment from the first delivery target of 2015 because it had converted initial orders for the B787- 8 version to the larger B787- 9 version, with longer range and more capacity —280 passengers in a threeclass configuration versus 240 for the B787- 8. The B787- 9, which at list prices is $ 257 million, was expected to bolster its international routes, especially for direct flights to North America.

• MeraEvents Promoter looks to Raise $10 m for Expansion: Versant Online Solutions, promoter of online events ticketing and solutions platform MeraEvents, is in the market to raise $10 million to power its global expansion and build a marketplace for events related service providers. The firm has mandated Bengalurubased investment advisory firm Khetal Advisors to advise it on fundraising and expects to close the round in 3-6 months. As part of its global push, the company plans to set up sales offices and teams in London, Dubai and Singapore. It has also started work on two separate portals that will serve as marketplaces for venues and service providers who cater to events. The first is expected to launch in a month. The marketplaces will see the firm grow its headcount to 110 from 60. “We've spent most of the past year laying the groundwork for the services marketplace and going glob al. The aim is to create an eco system of solu tions that goes well beyond ticketing,“ Me raEvents foun der and CEO aidu Darapaneni Chennapa Naidu Darapaneni told ET. He expects the company's GMV (gross merchandise value) to hit ₹100 crore (about $16 million) by December from . 15 crore now on the back of ` these expansion plans.

• CarTrade.com Latest Auto Classifieds Co to Get Funds: The automobile classifieds segment is being identified as the next billion-dollar opportunity by risk capital, as marquee investors rush to pour capital in the stillnascent space that is being seen as a harbinger of India's growing consumer internet story. Mumbai-based online auto classifieds platform CarTrade.com has raised an undisclosed amount from Chip Perry , former founding chief executive of Auto Trader, the largest online auto classifieds company in the US, believed to be valued at $7-8 billion. In October, CarTrade had raised $30 million (about . 180 crore) in a round led by PE ` major Warburg Pincus. The news of CarTrade's latest funding comes a day after Ratan Tata, chairman emeritus of the $100 billion Tata Group, invested an undisclosed amount in GirnarSoft, which owns and operates CarDekho.com. Perry and Tata's investments, which have been made in their personal capacity , are the latest examples of global investors making a beeline for the sector.

• Voda Elevates Naveen Chopra to COO's Post: Vodafone India has promoted enterprise services head Naveen Chopra to the role of chief operating officer, effective April 1. Chopra, director at Vodafone Business Services (VBS), will succeed Sunil Sood as COO at the Indian unit of Vodafone Group Plc, the country's No. 2 operator said in a statement issued Monday. The development comes on the heels of a previous announcement of Sood succeeding Marten Pieters as the telco's managing director and chief executive officer, also with effect from April 1. Chopra joined Vodafone in 2004 as vice president, corporate marketing, and over the last 10 years has served in various roles, including chief marketing officer.

• Star, Advertisers Clash like India & Pak on Ad Rates: Diehard cricket fans will remember the memorable IndiaPakistan battles of the past World Cups. The tense standoff in Bangalore in 1996 when Ajay Jadeja went on a rampage and Venkatesh Prasad showed Aamir Sohail the way to the pavilion after sending his stumps clattering; that glorious Saturday seven years later in Centurion Park when fiery Shoaib Akhtar's missiles were smacked by Sachin Tendulkar to all parts of the stadium, in the process delivering a huge win for India and a big confidence boost after a demoralising loss to Australia early in the tournament. This World Cup, the old enemies meet again. Not in the final as many fans would hope for or in the semi-finals like in 2011, but in the opening league match on February 15. Well ahead of that epic India-Pakistan encounter, a different kind of a battle is being fought behind the scenes. On one side are the advertisers who want to exploit the big viewership numbers that this match promises to deliver, and sitting tight on the other is Star India, the official broadcaster, who wants to milk the match by jacking up the advertising rates. More than 70 brands, including some regional brands and firsttime advertisers, have booked slots for the game, which is 50% more than the count for 2011 World Cup final, said a spokesman for Star India. At ₹25 lakh per 10 seconds, this is going to be the most expensive advertising opportunity ever in cricket, but one that not many advertisers would want to miss. The match will see Amitabh Bachchan making his debut as commentator.

• Mangrove Brings $250 M for E-comm, Telecom Space: Mangrove Capital Partners has come knocking with a $200-250 million corpus to invest in India's e-commerce, internet and telecom startups, a partner Michael Jackson at the Luxembourg based venture capital fund said. “India is going to be a fantastic market for us because there will be millions of people getting on the internet. Second, only local technology and local solutions can resolve local problems,“ Michael Jackson told ET. The venture capital fund will look at investing in companies that offer disruptive models in the e-commerce and telecom space, for an investment period of five to 10 years, he added. Mangrove has already invested $5-10 million in Store King, which offers e-commerce platform to retail stores that double up as grocery stores in the tier-3 and lower towns in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala.

International:

• Rebecca Minkoff to Open Chicago Store: Rebecca Minkoff will unveil her first store in Chicago this fall a 1,310-square-foot flagship at 106 East Oak Street. It will be the designer’s fourth U.S. store following a unit in Los Angeles that is under construction and existing stores in SoHo and San Francisco. The company plans to open two to three stores a year for the next four to five years, but the schedule could be accelerated, said Uri Minkoff, the company’s chief executive officer and brother of the designer. “We focused on Chicago because, on a wholesale basis, it’s consistently among our top three cities in terms of sales volume,” Minkoff said. “It’s the capital of the Midwest, and there are a lot of universities there.” The Minkoffs also took notice of a McKinsey & Co. report that listed Chicago among the 25 cities that will be global luxury capitals by 2025.

• Moschino Signs SoHo Lease: Moschino has just signed a lease to open a new store at 73 Wooster Street in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. The space, which measures about 3,700 square feet, was originally built in 1929 as a four-story garage. The new retail concept was developed by Jeremy Scott, Moschino’s creative director, and is similar to the store that was recently opened on Beverly Boulevard in West Hollywood, Calif. The planned opening for the SoHo store is this spring.

• Canada’s Maska Mode Eyes U.S. Expansion: After spending 14 years refining its upscale fast-fashion business, Montreal’s Maska Mode is venturing into the volatile U.S. market in 2015. The privately owned, family-run retailer — which currently operates 25 stores across Canada — will make its first foray into the U.S. via Boston, New York and Chicago. Launches are expected as early as the first half of 2015 and will roll out as the company continues its expansion into Western Canada, where Maska Mode opened its first boutiques in Vancouver and Calgary in November 2014. “We have yet to determine how many stores we will launch in the U.S. or when, precisely. But this company is incredibly agile,” co-owner Rebecca Cohen said. “Our strategy, as always, is to open fewer locations in great cities and do that in upscale little neighborhoods. That approach has served us very well in Canada.”

• Wet Seal's Fate: March 10 a Key Date: The Wet Seal Inc.’s fate — whether with B. Riley or a different owner — probably will be determined by mid-March. The Delaware bankruptcy court will likely hold an auction of the retail chain’s assets on or around March 10. Wet Seal filed a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection on Jan. 16. At the time, the teen chain said it planned to exit from bankruptcy as a reorganized chain of just 173 stores — the company closed 338 stores on Jan. 7 shortly before it filed its petition — and its Internet business. The chain inked a deal with B. Riley Financial Inc., the parent of asset disposition firm Great American Group, for a $20 million debtor-in-possession financing facility. In exchange, and as part of the reorganization, the $20 million would convert into newly issued common stock of the restructured company and B. Riley would hold an 80 percent stake in the reorganized firm. The balance of the equity would be owned by certain creditors holding generally allowed unsecured claims left unsatisfied in the bankruptcy.

• M1, L Capital Asia Take Controlling Stake in Pepe: Lebanese investment firm M1 Group and L Capital Asia have acquired a majority stake in Pepe Jeans Group from Torreal SA, Artá Capital and L Capital Europe in a transaction that’s expected to bolster its presence in Asia, the U.S. and other underdeveloped markets. The company’s Barcelona-based management team, headed by chief executive officer Carlos Ortega, will remain in place. The group, along with “other shareholders close to management, will reinvest alongside M1 Fashion and L Capital Asia,” the company said. The distribution of ownership among the principals and other details of the transactions weren’t disclosed. Morgan Stanley had been pursuing buyers for the jeanswear brand, founded in London in 1973, since last year and hoped to generate about 700 million euros, or about $810 million at current exchange, in sale proceeds, according to published reports.

• Downgrade Hits Abercrombie, Stock Skids: Shares of Abercrombie & Fitch Co. led the fashion industry lower today after Wunderlich Securities analyst Eric Beder downgraded the company to “sell” from "hold." Abercrombie’s stock fell 6.5 percent to $24.11, the worst performance among the 100 stocks in the WWD Global Stock Tracker, which declined 0.9 percent to 110.41. “Both Abercrombie and Hollister have been unable to retain any pricing power as they switch away from logo-driven product, despite material cost cutting and store pruning,” Beder said. The analyst said Abercrombie’s average unit retail price was off 25.9 percent this month versus a year ago, while Hollister is off 22 percent.

Tech:

• US-based Lowe's to Launch Innovation Centre in Bengaluru: Lowe's, the second-largest US home improvement retailer, is making India its global technology war front as it looks to fight against larger rival Home Depot with the help of futuristic technologies. Today, the $50-billion company's chairman and CEO Robert Niblock will launch Lowe's first technology innovation centre outside the US at Bengaluru where the team will work on areas such as data analytics, mobile applications, payment technologies and on ensuring that all of their technologies are highly secured. Lowe's expects to spend approximately $350Mn in their annual IT capital expenditures, including Omni-Channel capabilities. “We met with other retailers, asked them to explain how they were working on newage technology, and many of them pointed us to the global innovation centres they have in place in India,“ Niblock told ET in an exclusive interaction.

• Facebook to Launch Free Net Mobile App for RCOM Users: Facebook is set to launch internet.org, an initiative to provide internet access to those who don't have it, in India through a tie-up with Reliance Communications, two people familiar with the development said. The social media giant and India's fourth largest mobile operator have called a joint press conference in Mumbai on Tuesday for, what the invite says, “one launch that will make a billion dreams take off “. The people quoted above said it's for the launch of internet.org mobile application exclusively for Reliance Communications (RCom) users, providing basic internet services in categories such as health, education, communication, jobs and local information free of cost. The companies declined to comment. The Anil Ambani owned company, which has around 60 million subscribers who don't use data services, is hopeful that many such customers will opt for da ta services once intro duced to the internet through the free-of-charge experience.

• OnePlus One to be sold without invite in India on February 10: If the only thing that's holding you back from buying a OnePlus One is an invite then there's some good news for you. The value-for-money, premium smartphone will be available without an invite to all consumers on February 10. Amazon.in, the online marketplace which exclusively sells the phone has announced open sale of OnePlus One phones in India on its marketplace starting 10am on February 10, 2015 to mark the successful completion of 10 weeks of OnePlus in India. Consumers will not require any invite to purchase the OnePlus One smartphone during the sale. The phone is otherwise sold only to consumers who have an invite to buy the phone. Invites are distributed via social media and through consumers who buy the phone.

• Qualcomm to pay record $975m in China antitrust case: US chipmaker Qualcomm will pay $975m (£640m) to Chinese authorities to end a 14 month anti-trust investigation into its patent licensing practices. The fine is the largest in China's corporate history and will require the firm to lower royalty rates on patents used in China's mobile phone market. The move could help Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi and Huawei. Qualcomm said on Monday it would not contest the ruling that it violated China's anti-monopoly law. "Although Qualcomm is disappointed with the results of the investigation, it is pleased that the NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission) has reviewed and approved the company's rectification plan," the tech giant said in a statement on Monday.

• Netflix launches in Cuba as diplomatic relations thaw: Internet movie and television streaming service Netflix has launched in Cuba, as diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba continue to thaw. Netflix said its content, such as series House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, will be available to anyone with international payment cards. On 15 January, the US announced new rules that ease long-running sanctions against Cuba. A trade embargo has been in place since 1962. US credit card firms MasterCard and American Express have both said they will launch operations in Cuba soon. Last month, Netflix said its international expansion was proceeding ahead of schedule. The company said it plans to expand to 200 countries in the next two years, and to earn "material profits" from its operations overseas by 2017.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Car Sales Rise 3% in January, Fail to Match December Nos: Car sales returned to a more realistic pace of growth in January, with less than a third of the country’s 17 car manufacturers reporting an expansion. An anticipated withdrawal of excise duty benefits had inflated sales at almost all auto makers in the previous month. With consumer sentiment remaining muted, sales growth has lost the momentum it exhibited in the early month of the fiscal year that started in April 2014. Industry executives now forecast only some slim gains this fiscal year, and are waiting for the Budget announcement with hope. Sales of heavy commercial vehicles, considered a barometer of the economy’s performance, rose at a healthy rate in January, though on a low base. But weak two-wheeler sales brought down the overall automotive market sales growth to 1.66%. Car sales rose 3% in January to just over 1.69 lakh units. Total passenger vehicle sales — cars, utility vehicles and vans — increased 3.17% to 2.30 lakh units, data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed. In December, car sales had jumped more than 15% and passenger vehicle sales 12%. The duty reduction of 4-6%, which the auto industry has been enjoying since February last year, lapsed on December 31, 2014.

• India Key Mkt for Facebook's Internet Plans: Zuckerberg: India is the key to connect billions across the world to the Internet, Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said, as the social networking giant tied up with Reliance Communications to launch the Internet.org app in a country where smartphone sales growth is among the fastest globally . The app will offer users access to free basic Internet services for health, education, jobs and communication. “One day, we will connect everyone, and the power of the Internet will serve every community across India and the world. That day is coming,“ Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. “But to continue connecting the world, we have to connect India.“ Zuckerberg was referring to the over 1 billion of India's 1.2 billion population without an Internet connection, although most of them have mobile phones.As of December end, India had almost 944 million mobile phone users. Comparatively, India had over 243 million Internet users at the end of last year, of which 86 million had broadband access. He recounted his visit in October to Chandauli, a small village in northern India, which recently got connected to the Internet. Students at a computer centre in the village were learning to use the Internet for the first time. “Knowledge and tools were starting to make life better for everyone,“ he said.

• Vedanta to Go Slow on Fresh Investments: Diversified miner Vedanta Resources is facing trouble on two fronts as poor returns in Africa coincide with a commodity bear market. The Anil Agarwal-led Vedanta has spent more than $4 billion across Zambia, South Africa, Namibia and Liberia in the last 10 years and does not foresee making any more new investments until the current projects reap returns.Commodity prices, except zinc, are close to five-year lows, putting a ques tion mark on future spending. “It is going to take some time for the new supply in oil, iron ore and copper to get absorbed in the market. It will easily be another year or two. We have to make sure our business is properly shaped and size of our spending is configured for another two tough years,“ CEO Tom Albanese told ET. Vedanta wants to first get its underperforming copper mining business in Zambia in better order and then develop and grow its zinc business in South Africa and Namibia. It has planned an investment of $782 million over next three years to create a cluster of zinc mining, smelting and refining assets. Zinc is the only bright spot for Vedanta in Africa. Albanese said that the world was moving into an environment where communities were powered and countries wanted a greater say in both how operations are run and proceeds were distributed. There fore, he said, a broad support of communities, employees and government was necessary.

• Bookmyshow Buys Majority Stake in Eventifier for $2 M: Big Tree Entertainment, which owns Bookmyshow, is acquiring Bengaluru-based startup Eventifier as the Mumbai-based company looks to expand across the entertainment value chain. The deal involves Bookmyshow acquiring majority stake in Eventifier for over $2 million in cash with the investors exiting. The move underlines the increasing appetite among well-funded internet companies to make tuck-in acquisitions as they expand to new markets. Co-founded by Mohammed Saud, Nazim Zeeshan and Jazeel Badur Ferry in 2012, Eventifier stitches archives of social media content from conferences and events across the globe. Initially mentored by Chennai's The Startup Centre, it also raised venture capital funding from Accel Partners and Kae Capital. The company has over 1,500 clients like Pearson, UBM Tech, Clinton Foundation and NASA. “Eventifier solves a larger problem of social media, which is fragmented today but is extremely critical to any business need. Companies need to connect the dots on how consumers sitting on various social media platforms are relevant to them,“ said Ashish Hemrajani, co-founder & CEO of Bookmyshow.

• Radio cab majors work on combining tech: Ahead of the likely acquisition of online taxi aggregator TaxiForSure by larger competitor Ola Cabs, technology teams of the two Bengalurubased companies are learnt to be evaluating ways in which the two platforms can be integrated, sources said. The term sheet for the deal had not been signed until last week but sources said the agreement was “ more or less done”. So, the companies want to be prepared for swift integration once the move is formalised. The acquisition is likely to be announced by the end of this month, multiple sources have said. “The two companies need to look at technology integration at several levels, starting from migrating consumers from one app to the other, and then migrating drivers and wallets,” said another source. “ While Ola Cabs platform is superior to that of TaxiForSure, the combined platform might pick some technologies of the latter.” OlaCabsandTaxiForSuredid not respond to a query on the matter. An Ola Cabs spokesperson refused to comment. Sources had earlier said TaxiForSure had an acquisition offer from both its competitors, Uber and Ola Cabs.

• Maruti Celerio Diesel Version Plan Gets Delayed: Maruti Suzuki has decided to go slow on launching the 800cc diesel engine powered small car and a small commercial vehicle due to a slowdown in domestic sales of mini-trucks and consumers’ preference for petrol as diesel loses its price advantage, people aware of the development said. The car maker could delay these two new launches by about 3-6 months, the persons quoted earlier said, adding that the automaker has told vendors that volumes for the first year will be 70-80% lower than projected. As against the earlier expectation of selling 80,00090,000 units of the small commercial vehicle (SCV) and small diesel car per annum, Maruti now expects to produce 600-700 units of SCV and about 1,000 units of diesel Celerio, which comes to only about 20% or 15,000 units per annum. Production of the diesel Celerio, which was to begin in December 2014, is likely to start only after April. Similarly, the start of production of the mini-truck has been pushed to April-end from the earlier plan of January 2015.

• Online FMCG sales to touch $ 5 bn by 2020: Google- Bain study: A study by a technology company, Google, and a consultancy firm, Bain & Company, said online sales in fast- moving consumer goods ( FMCG)’ s categories, such as male grooming, beauty, food and beverages, and infant care would reach $ 5 billion (₹ 30,000 crore) by 2020. This would make up five per cent of total FMCG sales, estimated to reach $ 100 billion (₹ 6 lakh crore) by 2020, the study said. "The current FMCG market size is $ 50 billion (₹ 3 lakh crore). Of this, online FMCG sales are 0.3 per cent only. The increase in the next five years is substantial and speaks of the rapid digital migration of consumers in the timeframe under review," said Nikhil Prasad Ojha, partner, Bain & Company. The study, the findings of which were collated after three months of research last year involving 1,600 internet users across 13 cities, noted a third of the FMCG market in five years would be influenced in some form or the other by the digital medium.

• IKEA India CEO to meet DIPP Secretary, to discuss e-commerce: Swedish furniture retail major IKEA's India Chief Executive Officer Juvencio Maeztu will meet DIPP Secretary Amitabh Kant tomorrow to discuss opportunities in Indian e-commerce business and issues related to sourcing. According to sources, IKEA is keen to participate in the fast growing e-commerce medium in India, which has seen furniture retail portals such as urbanladder.com and pepperfry.com gaining prominence. "The meeting between Kant and Maeztu will discuss its 'make more in India' initiative of the company to increase sourcing from India as the company wants to produce maximum products in India," a source said.

• IT Biggies Scramble for Startups to Keep Abreast with Disruptive Technologies: By the end of March this year, Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest software company, would have screened over 1,000 startups across Silicon Valley , Israel and Helsinki as part of its hunt for the next big, disruptive idea. Of these, TCS will eventually work with around two dozens, taking their solutions to some of its biggest customers. TCS is not alone in this hunt. Rivals Wipro, Infosys and Cognizant Technology Solutions, too, have started wooing startups in the areas of retail, healthcare and data analytics, to ensure they don't miss out on the next big thing. “For these IT companies it is a matter of survival to open new markets and to invest in fresh ideas,“ said Vivek Wadhwa, a fellow at Stanford University's Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance. “It is very hard to do this in the con fines of a big business because people are afraid of taking risks and challenging authority. But that is what startups do, and that is why they are investing in them,“ said Wadhwa, a former technology entrepreneur. Wipro, which is setting up a corporate venture arm in the Valley has already met over 500 startups this year, while Infosys is doubling down on this strategy with a $500-million (approx `. 3,100 crore) fund to invest in the next set of disruptive ideas. For India's biggest technology firms, coping with a mid-life crisis and scrambling to keep pace with technology shifts, the next big thing is small. VC firms and entrepreneurs are their new partners, as they are moving beyond the old-world alliances with the likes of SAP and Oracle.

• DD to Show India-Pak Match Live on Sunday: Millions of Doordarshan viewers will be able to watch the India-Pakistan World Cup cricket match live on February 15, with the Supreme Court on Tuesday staying a Delhi High Court order that had restrained the public broadcaster from showing the matches on channels such as DD National and DD News that are carried by cable operators. Under the law, cable operators have to compulsorily carry these channels. Rights holder Star had moved the Delhi High Court contending that showing the matches on them would hurt its advertisement revenue and subscription fees. Doordarshan's revenue surges during these matches, and though these are shared with the rights holder in the ratio of 75:25, cable operators are then able to pick up the state-run broadcaster's feed rather than having to subscribe to that of the rights holder. Acting on the plea, the high court had restrained Doordarshan from showing the matches on these two channels. Both the central government and Prasar Bharati, which runs Doordarshan, had appealed against the February 6 high court decision in the top court. Attorney General Mukul Rohtagi mentioned these appeals filed by lawyers Rajeev Sharma and Sahil Bhalaik on an urgent outof-turn basis before Chief Justice HL Dattu to get an immediate hearing.

• Star unit wins Internet, mobile rights for IPL: The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday awarded the global Internet and mobile rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) to Novi Digital Entertainment Pvt. Ltd, a unit of Star India Pvt. Ltd, for Rs.302.2 crore for a three-year period ending 2017. The marketing committee of the BCCI met in Mumbai on Tuesday, to receive the bids made for certain media rights relating to the Pepsi IPL for the next three seasons, for which a cumulative reserve price of Rs.120 crore was set. Bids from three entities were received—Times Internet Ltd, Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd (MSM), which operates the Sony bouquet of channels, and Novi Digital Entertainment. According to a BCCI official who declined to be named, MSM’s bid price was Rs.286 crore while Times Internet bid Rs.191 crore.

International:

• Italy's Marzotto family completes purchase of Hugo Boss stake: Italy's Marzotto family has completed the purchase of a 7 per cent stake, or 5 million shares, in luxury goods company Hugo Boss through holding companies Zignago Holding SpA and PFC Srl, the firms said in a statement on Tuesday. The deal was supported by a 150 million euros ($169 million) financing arranged by Mediobanca. In a separate statement on Tuesday, Italian merchant bank Tamburi said it had bought 490,000 ordinary shares in Hugo Boss for 50 million euros in a share placement. 

• Closeout Retailer Ollie's Selects Banks for IPO: Deep-discount retailer Ollie's Bargain Outlet, known for the signature catch phrase "good stuff cheap," is preparing for an initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter. The Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based company, which is owned by Chief Executive Officer Mark Butler and private equity firm CCMP Capital Advisors LLC, is working with investment banks JPMorgan Chase & CO, Bank of America Corp and Jefferies LLC on a potential IPO, which is expected later this year, the people said. The people requested anonymity because the matter is private. Ollie's could not be immediately reached for comment. CCMP, JPMorgan, Bank of America and Jefferies declined to comment.

• Sally Scott Named U.K. MD of Vente-Privee: Vente-Privee.com has named Sally Scott as U.K. managing director, a new position at the company, the online flash sales site said this week. Scott, whose appointment is effective immediately, was most recently marketing director of Value Retail, the luxury shopping village outlet group, and before that she served as marketing director of Selfridges from 2005 through 2011. Vente-Privee said that Scott will oversee all its business-to-business and business-to-consumer activities in the U.K., and the firm noted that Scott’s appointment “marks a new stage for Vente-Privee’s growth in the U.K., a market of increasing importance for the company.” Scott, a native of Toronto, will report to Jacques-Antoine Granjon, founder and president of Vente-Privee.com, and will be based between London and Paris.

• Gap Raises Guidance Despite Soft Comps: Thanks to a standout performance from Old Navy and a lower effective tax rate, Gap Inc. raised its full-year earnings guidance on Monday to a range of $2.86 to $2.87 from the previous spread of $2.73 to $2.78. That puts fourth-quarter earnings per share between 73 cents and 74 cents, above the 68-cent consensus estimate of analysts. Incoming chief executive officer Art Peck isn’t going to have the benefit of brisk momentum, however, as he looks to turn around the company’s ailing namesake brand. The firm reported its comparable-sales results for January and the fourth quarter and the results hardly could have been encouraging. The company comp slid 3 percent last month as the Gap brand — down 9 percent — erased a 3 percent increase at Old Navy and a 2 percent gain at Banana Republic. Thomson Reuters expected a 1 percent decline overall, a 4.5 percent dip at Gap brand and a gain of 2.6 percent at Banana Republic.

• Jack Ma: Alibaba 'Isn’t Too Big to Fail': Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. chairman Jack Ma met with Chinese regulators to explain his goals in the financial industry, the latest meeting with authorities after a government “white paper” accused the e-commerce company of allowing counterfeit product sales. The online shopping portal which raised $25 billion in an initial public offering last year “definitely isn’t too big to fail,” Ma told officials of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, according to a transcript of the meeting posted on Sina.com. Asia’s richest man reiterated his aim to be a player in the finance sector, citing his Yu’E Bao online money market fund and the credit-scoring system set up by Alibaba affiliate Zhejiang Ant Small & Micro Financial Services Group Co., according to the transcript. Alibaba will develop markets in rural areas, improve its ability to harness large amounts of data and expand cloud computing, Ma said.

• White House Creates Cybersecurity Center: The White House unveiled a new cybersecurity center on Tuesday to coordinate and analyze cyber-threat assessments across agencies and disseminate information rapidly. The move is in response to the growing number of cyber attacks that have impacted a broad swath of the U.S. economy, ranging from Target Corp., Home Depot and Sony Pictures to banks and government agencies. Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, outlined the scope of the center that is being modeled after the national counterterrorism center.

Tech:

• Apple taps First Solar for renewable energy in $850 million deal: Apple Inc is embracing renewable energy with an $848 million commitment to obtain electricity from a solar farm that’s big enough to power its offices in California, along with 52 retail stores and a data center. The company that revolutionized how people use computers and mobile phones is stepping up efforts to make the entire business more environmentally friendly. Apple is teaming up with First Solar Inc. to secure solar-generated electricity for 25 years, a deal that the energy company described as the largest agreement ever for a single commercial end user. Apple joins Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and other companies with intensive data operations that are seeking to get more power from renewable sources. Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer, has made environmental responsibility a key element of his management of the Cupertino-based company, with 100% of its data centers running on renewable energy. “We’re doing this because it’s right to do, but you may also be interested to know that it’s good financially to do it,” Cook said Tuesday at a Goldman Sachs technology conference in San Francisco. “We expect to have a very significant savings because we have a fixed price for the renewable energy — so we’re thrilled to continue on this course of doing things that really leave the world better than we founded.”

• Startup Nutanix Makes Running Apps, OS on Single Server Possible: Going for the jugular is the norm in the predatory world of technology startups that battle for the attention of consumers. Now, a fiveyear-old startup founded by an Indian engineer is preparing to stir up the aggressive instincts of enterprise software makers in Silicon Valley. “There is no large technology company in the world, that does not want to see us dead,“ says founder of Nutanix Inc Dheeraj Pandey, who is girding up to battle the big boys of the technology world with his plan to build an `iPhone' for data centres. The San Jose­based startup makes it possible for businesses to run multiple applications and operating systems on a single server, while large technology companies typically provide storage infrastructure separately. Some of the world's top investors are buying into the proposition. Last August, the company received a valuation of $2 billion raising about$140 million. Pandey , who graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, is convinced his aggression is well-founded. In five years, his company has bagged over 700 customers including the US departments of defence and energy. “You know when a little brother starts to grow up, starts to assert and becomes big in a competitive environment, (it) becomes testy ,“ he said. Nutanix's technology termed a hyper-converged storage system or virtual compute platform which combines storage and servers reduces the number of information technology managers a business requires. This allows data centres to run more efficiently. To place it in perspective instead of having a single purpose devices like voice recorder, camera and calculator, Nutanix converges all of this on one platform.

• Yelp gets into the delivery business with Eat24 acquisition: Yelp is about to get a bit more useful. The app and site you check before you eat anywhere new just announced that it has acquired food delivery service Eat24. Announced today, Yelp wants to expand Eat24 to work with the one million Yelp restaurants listed on the service. That’s a huge ramp up from the current 20,000 restaurants that have partnered with Eat24 for delivery. Commenting on the acquisition via a press release, Yelp CEO and co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman said, “As more food ordering transactions move online, further integrating Eat24 will enhance our user experience with an easy-to-use product and service that allows our large consumer audience to transact directly with businesses.”

• Microsoft patches massive bug that allowed attackers to take complete control of computers: Today, Microsoft has issued a critical patch to every supported version of Windows that resolves a bug that may have been open for as long as fifteen years could allow attackers to remotely take control of Windows devices that connect to an Active Directory domain. The flaw — named ‘Jasbug’ — could allow someone to hijack a machine in a fairly straightforward manner. According to JAS Advisors, the company that found the bug, it was reported in January 2014 and took over a year to resolve because it was a core Windows design problem, not a implementation problem. The researchers who found the bug said that “all computers and devices that are members of a corporate Active Directory network may be at risk.” If successfully executed, attackers could take full control of a machine, install applications or create new user accounts.

• Google's I/O Conference Is Slated for May 28 and 29: Spring is coming up, and that means Google’s I/O developer conference is as well. Google executive Sundar Pichai announced the event via a tweet; it will take place on May 28 and 29 in San Francisco. Registration begins on March 17 at 9AM PDT and closes on March 19 at 5PM. There’s no word on price yet, but tickets for last year’s event cost $900 for regular attendees and $300 for select students.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Etailers Turn Sponsors Big-Time: Amazon India has bagged the title sponsorship of the India Fashion Week, replacing Wills Lifestyle, as India’s deep-pocketed ecommerce companies increasingly snap up title sponsorship of major television shows, fashion and sporting events to increase their visibility. Amazon, which has ambitious plans for India’s booming online fashion industry, beat peers such as Snapdeal.com and Myntra to bag the sponsorship of the prestigious bi-annual event organised by the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), two people familiar with the development said. The US e-commerce major will be shelling out a shade less than ₹100 crore for a multi-year association with the event which will now be called Amazon India Fashion Week, they said. Sunil Sethi, president of FDCI, declined to comment. An email query sent to Amazon India on Tuesday did not elicit any response as of press time on Wednesday. Last year, Snapdeal.com had replaced Vodafone as the main sponsor of popular TV reality show Bigg Boss. The Delhi-based online retailer is also an associate sponsor of the Bangalore Fashion Week. Online fashion retailer Jabong is an associate sponsor of Lakme Fashion Week and official retail partner of marathons in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, while its rival Myntra is sponsoring a women’s marathon event in Bengaluru.

• M&M to Acquire Pipavav Defence in Rs 3,000-cr Deal: Mahindra & Mahindra, one of India's largest diversified conglomerates, will purchase a majority stake in Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering (PDOE) for roughly ₹3,000 crore at ₹66 a share in a three-phase deal, ` two people with direct knowledge of the plan said. Along with debt of around ₹6,800 crore and fresh equity that will be issued, the deal is seen as having an enterprise value of ₹12,000 crore, they said. In the first phase, Mahindra Defence Systems (MDS), which supplies various types of launchers for ships, along with systems and components to customers other than the Indian Navy, will pur chase a 19% stake in Pipavav De fence from the founders, Chair man Nikhil Gand hi and his youngd Managing Director er brother and Managing Director Bhavesh Gandhi, who own about 45% of the company. Later, Pipavav Defence will issue preferential shares to the acquirer to raise the latter's stake to 40%. In the third phase, MDS will make an open offer to purchase an additional 26% stake from the public to abide by takeover guidelines. “The broader contours of the deal involve a three-step transaction -a direct purchase from promoters, issue of shares to the buyer and, later, an open offer,“ said one of the two cited above. Leading Indian groups such as M&M, RIL, Reliance Group and the Tatas have shown keen interest in the defence sector er brother and “Bankers are working on the structure and finer details,” said a person with direct knowledge of the plan.

• Star India Acquires Maa TV for Rs 2.5k Crore: Rupert Murdoch's Star India, which was missing a key piece of southern television entertainment action, has now attempted to set that right with the purchase of the biggest Telugu entertainment network. Maa Television Network Ltd, which runs four channels covering movies, music and general entertainment, will now be owned by Star India. CEO of Star India, Uday Shankar, announced the buyout in Hyderabad on Wednesday.He did not disclose the deal value, but industry officials and people close to the transaction estimated it to be ₹2,000-2,500 crore. The purchase puts Star on top of the second-biggest regional market for general entertainment. “The acquisition gives Star a powerful national footprint and a strong presence in the fast-growing regional space,“ said Jehil Thakkar, partner and head, media and entertainment, KPMG India. “As digitisation takes hold, it will be important for a network to have a strong presence in every package and Star is now very well positioned to do so. As the economy rebounds and advertising growth returns, the Telugu market will be a key component of any national offering to an advertiser.“ The deal takes place nearly three years after the unsuccessful attempt by the Maa TV management to sell 30% equity to Sony Entertainment Television. A Ficci KPMG report of 2014 estimated regional TV channels accounted for 27% of the total television viewership in 2012. This has now grown by more than 35%. Maa has 26% market share among Telugu channels, a revenue of ₹350 crore and profit of about ₹65 crore. Telugu viewership is fourth highest in the country with an average viewership of 1,400 minutes a week, higher than the national average of 1,100 minutes.

• Volkswagen Closes Two India Sales Offices to Cut Cost: Volkswagen is tightening its sales and marketing operations in India to cut cost as local sales remain muted. The auto maker has closed its regional sales offices in Delhi and Bengaluru, and is focusing on exports to utilise capacity. Wolfsburg, Germany-based Volkswagen entered the Indian market in 2007 and started local production in 2009. It has capacity to produce 1.3 lakh cars a year, or more than 10,800 a month, at its plant in Pune, but makes fewer vehicles. Since the start of the current fiscal year in April, it manufactured close to 89,000 cars through January, at an average of 8,900 a month. More than 60% of these vehicles are exported. It started the regional offices ­ in Delhi for north and east India and in Bengaluru for south ­ to streamline marketing and sales functions after facing much flak from customers over the quality of service and supply of spares. Volkswagen has now closed these offices and merged them with its national sales company (NSC) that operates from the local head office in Mumbai, company sources said. The decision was made purely on “operational basis and is only related to the field forces“ of Volkswagen and unit Audi, said Thierry Lespiaucq, managing director of Volkswagen Group Sales India.These functions will now be centrally coordinated, he told ET.

• Zopper to raise $50- 100 million: Zopper, which connects offline retailers to the online community and offers comparisons for products across categories, is set to tap the market within a quarter to raise up to $ 100 million. Started in 2011 as a reviews platform reviews42. com, Zopper’s founders might dilute about 15- 20 per cent equity to raise between $ 50100 million over the next couple of quarters, Neeraj Jain, cofounder and chief executive officer ( CEO), told Business Standard. “ While our target is to raise $ 50- 100 million, the final quantum will depend on many factors,” he added. Zopper had raised $ 5 million from Tiger Global and Nirvana Ventures last June in the Series- A round. The founders received seed funding in October 2011 from Blume Ventures and Ventureast and the second round came from Nirvana Ventures and Blume Ventures in January 2013. “We need the next round of funding to scale up nationwide.

• Lufthansa Scouts for Long-term IT Provider in India: Lufthansa, Europe's largest airline, is looking to consolidate its global IT service providers and strike a long-term deal with an Indian company to tap into digital technologies to stay ahead of the competition. The carrier plans to reduce its spend on legacy systems by improving efficiency and divert to digital projects the money it saves in the process, besides cutting down on its vendors that number over 300 at present. “We want to consolidate and simply our vendor management.Working with a large Indian provider makes sense because our competitors work with them and we want to boost our use of offshore efficiencies,“ Roland Schuetz, Lufthansa's senior vice president and chief information officer told ET. Schuetz and the airline's CEO Karl Ulrich Garnadt, who are in India to attend the Nasscom India Leadership Forum in Mumbai, are working on narrowing down the vendors. The CIO now reports to the CEO, instead of the chief financial officer earlier.

• Zomato to Invest Rs 300 Crore: Online restaurant guide Zomato will begin to take orders for meals on behalf of restaurants listed on its portal, adding muscle for a fight with global leaders Foodpanda and Yelp for top honours in the fast-growing market. “We are allocating $50 million (₹300 crore) to launch the online food ordering business, said Deepinder Goyal the chief executive officer of Zomato. “ The service will also be launched overseas in the next few months.“ In India the service timed to coincide with the start of the Cricket World Cup will cover 2,000 restaurants in March and extend to 10,000 restaurants in the next six months. The move, designed to add a new stream of revenue for the Gurgaon-based company , will allow users to select dishes, see their movement from the kitchen to their table and pay with one click using a mobile app.

• Coke Plans Summer Treat with Fuze Tea: US beverages giant Coca-Cola plans to launch Fuze Tea, its billion-dollar global brand that combines tea and fruit juice, in India this summer, two officials familiar with the company's plans told ET. This will be Coca-Cola India's second shot at ready-to-drink tea after its global joint venture with foods firm Nestle to sell and distribute ready-to-drink Nestea iced tea was dissolved three years ago. “The company is working out plans to bring Fuze Tea to retail shelves latest by the June quarter ­ in time for peak summer season,“ said an official aware of the developments. The fizz drinks major is looking to include a larger number of functional or low-sugar beverages in its portfolio in line with increasing health consciousness among consumers across the world. “The plan is to bottle Fuze Tea initially through Coca-Cola's bottling partner Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, and subsequently scale up the brand through its franchise bottlers,“ said the official quoted earlier. Another offi cial involved with the company’s plans said Coca-Cola wants to test the brand first through its own bottling arm before getting franchise bottlers to invest in it. A Coca-Cola India spokesperson declined comment on the matter.

• Cos Now Gel With Movie Content for Fame in Frame: After years of pushing for just a spot in the frame, brands are now integrating with the content of films, taking in-film branding to a new level that is not only helping film makers reduce costs but also giving brands more prominence. In the latest Bollywood production Shamitabh, the brand name Lifebuoy, a soap brand owned by Hindustan Unilever (HUL), is integrated with the film's content. Shamitabh opens with the premiere of another movie where actor Dhanush plays the lead role as Lifebuoy, who fights against the ills of society. The film-in-film goes on to become a big hit and establishes Dhanush as a star. And that’s not all, the film also has the good-old tagline “Tandurusti ki raksha karta hai Lifebuoy”. According to George Koshy, general manager, personal wash, HUL, the film’s writer-director R Balki approached the company with the idea of integration.

• Uninor Operating Profit Up for '14, but Q4 Loss Widens: Mobile phone carrier Uninor posted yearly operating profit in 2014, helped by a rise in its user base, but its operating loss for the fourth quarter widened on year because of an increase in capital expenditure and competition, which outweighed the effect of higher data usage. The Indian unit of Norway's Telenor ASA's operating profit for 2014 came in at NOK 882 million (about Rs 724 crore), compared with a loss of NOK 576 million.Revenue increased nearly 40% on year after its subscriber base increased 31% to end 2014 with nearly 44 million users. For the quarter ended December, Uninor, which operates in six of India's 22 circles, posted an operating loss of NOK 285 million compared with NOK 132 million a year back, as the company invested 54% more in net work expan sion. Quar terly revenue though jumpon-year at NOK ed 42% year-on-year at NOK 1.19 billion on the back of 2.3 million subscribers that the company added in the threemonth period. Growth in rupees was 26% on year.

International:

• Apple Goes Green with $850-m Solar Power Deal: Apple will buy about $850 million of power from a new California solar farm to cut its energy bill, the iPhone maker said on Tuesday. The First Solar plant, with the capacity to power the equivalent of 60,000 homes, will be used to supply electricity for Apple’s new campus in Silicon Valley, and its other offices and 52 stores in the state, CEO Tim Cook said at a Goldman Sachs technology conference in San Francisco. “We expect to have a very significant savings because we have a fixed price for the renewable energy, and there’s quite a difference between that price and the price of brown energy,” Cook said. “We know in Apple that climate change is real. The time for talk is passed,” he added. “The time for action is now.”

• Baidu shares plunge after revenue miss: New York listed shares of China's biggest online search engine, Baidu, fell nearly 10% in after-hours trading after its quarterly revenue came in below expectations. Baidu's fourth quarter revenue was 14.05bn yuan ($2.26bn; £1.5bn), missing market forecasts of 14.12bn yuan. The tech giant also forecast revenue for the current quarter well below analyst expectations. The revenue miss was due to more users switching from PCs to mobile devices. That results in less space for different forms of online advertising for the company.

• Robb Giammatteo Named CFO of Ascena: Robb Giammatteo has been promoted to chief financial officer of Ascena Retail Group Inc. Giammatteo, who joined Ascena in September 2013 as senior vice president of financial planning and analysis and investor relations, succeeds Dirk Montgomery, who resigned as cfo last summer for personal reasons. Kevin Trolaro, assistant vice president and assistant controller, had served as interim cfo since Montgomery’s departure. Giammatteo reports to David Jaffe, president and chief executive officer of Ascena, which owns and operates the Dress Barn, Lane Bryant, Maurices, Catherines, Cacique and Justice specialty retailing nameplates. Ascena conducted a search including both internal and external candidates for the post prior to making the appointment.

• Scott Kessler Named Belk's Chief Information Officer: Scott Kessler, most recently senior vice president of omnichannel solutions delivery at Belk Inc., has been promoted to chief information officer of the Charlotte, N.C.-based department store group. He succeeds Mike Laurenti, who left the firm to join Delhaize Group, and reports to John Belk, president and chief operating officer. Kessler joined Belk in his most recent post in March after nearly 10 years with GSI Commerce, most recently as senior vice president of products technology. His post at GSI encompassed Web store, product engineering, architecture, fraud operations, mobility, payments and supply chain. Earlier in his career, he was a senior manager at Accenture and manager of systems development at Dow Jones.

• Wal-Mart to Open 25 Canada SuperCenters: Target may have retreated from Canada, but its competitor Wal-Mart is making a bigger commitment to its business north of the border. The Bentonville, Ark,-based mass retailer on Wednesday said it will spend about $340 million Canadian dollars, or $240 million, to open 29 new SuperCenters during the company's fiscal year, which runs from February 2015 through January 2016. Wal-Mart said it will also expand its distribution network in Canada to support food and ecommerce growth on its Web site, walmart.ca. The expenditure is part of the company's previously announced capex or 2016.

• Mark Hoplamazian Joins VF's Board: Mark Hoplamazian, president and chief executive officer of Hyatt Hotels Corp., has been elected to the board of directors of VF Corp. His appointment expands the size of the Greensboro, N.C.-based company’s board to 13 members. All but Eric Wiseman, chairman, president and ceo of VF, are deemed to be independent. Hoplamazian was named president and ceo of Hyatt in December 2006, a month after his appointment to the company’s board. Prior to that, he served as president of The Pritzker Organization LLC, the principal financial and investment advisor to the Pritzker family that controls Hyatt. Prior to his 17-year tenure at Pritzker, he worked in international mergers and acquisitions at The First Boston Corp.

• Apple becomes first company worth over $700 billion: Apple became the first company to reach a market value of $700 billion Tuesday as shares vaulted amid upbeat news on the US tech giant's gains in the smartphone market and soon-to-arrive smartwatch. Shares rose 1.9 per cent to close at $122.02, lifting Apple's market value to $710 billion, and making it the first company to hit the $700 billion milestone. Apple chief executive Tim Cook, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology & Internet Conference, said Apple was hitting its stride. "We've taken (the mobile operating system) iOS and extended it into your car, into your home, into your health. All of these are really critical parts of your life," Cook said. 

Tech:

• Lava Drops Out of Race to Buy Nokia's Chennai Handset Unit: Lava International has dropped out of the race to buy Nokia's Chennai handset factory, once the world's biggest but now non-operational, as the fast-growing home-bred smartphone maker concentrates on developing its own manufacturing facilities in Uttar Pradesh. According to people aware of the development, a large-scale Chinese manufacturer, which was supposed to partner with Lava International to buy and subsequently operate the Nokia plant, decided to invest in its home market, forcing Lava to change its plans. These people said Nokia's mobile phone manufacturing plant located in the special economic zone (SEZ) in Sriperambudur, near Chennai, which had a peak capacity to make 15 million feature phones and smartphones a month, was too big for the Noidabased company to buy and operate on its own. Executives at Lava International declined comment on the development but confirmed that the company was investing in two plants in Uttar Pradesh--one in Noida's Sector 58, where it will assemble phones, and the other near the Yamuna Expressway. Lava said it has proposed to invest ₹600 crore in the second plant, and that 25 acre was nearly finalized, but negotiations were on with the state government for more land.

• Twitter is rolling out swipe to dismiss images: Twitter appears to be rolling out a big change to how you get get out of viewing images on the service once you’re done. Previously, to dismiss an image you’d make a single tap on the image. For many users today, it’s changed to be a simple swipe up or down to return to their Twitter feed. This feature rolled out for me today and I spent a good few minutes confused about why tapping an image wasn’t getting rid of it. After a few confusing moments it becomes natural to swipe away, though. Third-party app Tweetbot has had a similar swipe-to-dismiss feature for a number of years, which might be where Twitter got the inspiration.

• It's official, Microsoft's acquired Sunrise calendar app: A week after the news dropped that Microsoft was acquiring calendar app maker, Sunrise Atelier, the companies have confirmed the acquisition via a YouTube video that has since been made private. The Sunrise calendar app for mobile and desktop is a user favorite. With this acquisition Microsoft is looking beyond its own developers for ways to make its calendar apps better. Earlier reports pegged the purchase price at over $100 million, but there’s no official word on what Microsoft paid. In the year since Satya Nadella became CEO, Microsoft has been working on being more open – including open source – and hopes it can generate the kind of user obsession Apple enjoys. During the Windows 10 event, Nadella repeatedly told the audience that he wants Microsoft to be loved. If the company continues to buy up much beloved startups and their apps without messing them up, it might just get that.

• BitTorrent Takes on Netflix with Original Content Partnership: Everyone’s getting into the original content game now. BitTorrent today announced a partnership with Rapid Eye Studios to debut original content on the BitTorrent Bundle distribution platform. Rapid Eye Studios, created by producer Marco Weber, will be creating and producing the content. It will be released first on BitTorrent, but the platform only has the content exclusively for 30 to 60 days. After that period, it can be made available through any other distributor. Still, the projects receive heavy BitTorrent support, with marketing across all of BitTorrent’s brand. Creators can choose either paid or free (advertising-based) pricing models. BitTorrent says its original programming will focus on “a young, creative, and influential group of 14-25 year-olds,” who make up most of BitTorrent’s audience of 170 million active users.

• Facebook Launches ThreatExchange to Battle Security Issues: The Internet is a dangerous place full of botnets, malware and so many hackers. While recently battling a botnet Facebook realized that if it worked with other organizations and they shared information with each other, their answers could help all the companies involved to squelch the risk. From that initial partnership Facebook has built the ThreatExhange an API-based clearing house for companies to share security information with each other. The initial partners were Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter and Yahoo with Bitly and Dropbox joining the beta. The ThreatExchange platform is built upon the ThreatData framework and Facebook infrastructure. Partners can share as much or as little information as they want with other companies. They can also determine which companies they want to share data with.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Google Brings in PE Subsidiary to Capitalise on Indian Startup Boom: Google is setting up its growth capital arm in India to double down on startup investing as it turns bullish on fast-growing local emerging companies that have drawn attention from big investors across the world. Google Capital will hire a team and invest in growth-stage companies in India, a market in which investors ranging from Japanese communications group SoftBank to Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba have recently made big bets. “It made a lot of sense to focus a lot of attention here now,“ David Lawee, partner at Google Capital told ET in an exclusive interview. In the next 3-7 years, nearly 30% of the world's billion-dollar companies will be from India, Lawee predicted. India's startup ecosystem has become increasingly attractive for a spectrum of investors from large hedge funds to corporate venture capital arms as compa nies such as Flipkart and Paytm notch up hundreds of millions of dollars in funding at multi-billion-dollar valuations.Eight-year-old Flipkart was valued at (₹67,000 crore) in its latest over $11 billion funding round last year while China's Alibaba has earmarked Alibaba has earmarked $575 million to invest in four-year-old mobile commerce player Paytm.

• Bitten by the Fashion Bug, Birlas Plan E-tail Venture: The Aditya Birla Group is set to launch an online fashion retail venture selling apparel, footwear and accessories, taking on existing players such as Jabong and Myntra and highlighting the growing appetite among India's cash-rich conglomerates to enter sunrise businesses. The fashion venture, it seems, is a prelude to the group's bigger plans for the e-commerce sector. “Fashion e-tailing will be the group's launch pad into the e-commerce space, which offers multiple opportunities,“ said a person familiar with the plan. The $40-billion group is putting together an e-commerce team headed by former Mckinsey executive Prashant Gupta. Gupta, who joined the Group in 2010, was given the task of evaluating opportunities in the e-commerce space early last year. The basic structure for the new portal and its branding will be ready in another six weeks. “We are evaluating several options for branding,“ said the person. The Group is already into fashion business through Madura Fashion & Lifestyle, which sells brands such as Louis Philippe, Van Heusen, Allen Solly, Peter England and People. The new online venture will be independent of this brick-and mortar business.

• Shoppers Stop May Soon Give Home Delivery to Cut Queues: India's largest department store Shoppers Stop has piloted a special queue-busting service this end-of-season sale season at select stores, wherein shoppers can fill their shopping bags and drop them off with their address details at a dedicated zone. They can pay for it when the retailer delivers the products at their doorstep. “During sale, a lot of people get tired and drop the bag,“ said Govind Shrikhande, managing director at Shoppers Stop. “In a normal situation, drop off bags account for just 1% but during sale, it can go up to 4%-6%. While the queues are longer, there are more items in the bags too. So, if we are able to recover even half those bags, it's a great addition to our sales,“ he said. Shoppers Stop also plans to offer Wi-Fi in its outlets to help customers navigate the stores, find brands and offers and shop online from the store itself, as part of its efforts to woo customers to its shops at a time when more and more Indians are taking to online shopping.

• Titan in Advanced Talks to Buy 15% Stake in CaratLane: Tata Group company Titan is in advanced negotiations to invest about $30 million (₹187 crore) in online jewellery retailer CaratLane for a 15% equity stake, according to top sources privy to the transaction. The deal, likely to be signed in a few weeks, will peg CaratLane's valuation at about ₹1,200 crore. CaratLane was last valued at ₹750 crore in October 2014, when Tiger Global invested $31 million in it, a source in the investor community said.“We are in the process of closing round D for which we are in talks with an Indian conglomerate, among others,“ CaratLane founder Mithun Sacheti said, declining to elaborate further. “Titan has its own website where it sells products across all categories. We are not otherwise doing anything else now and will not otherwise comment on market speculation,“ Titan's chief financial officer, Subramaniam S, said in response to ET's email query .

• Future Retail May Sell Stake in Logistics Arm to Raise Rs 700 cr: Retail baron Kishore Biyani's Future Retail plans to raise about Rs 700 crore by selling some stake in its logistics arm Future Supply Chain Solution possibly through an initial public offering later this year. The firm's board of directors approved divesting a part of its stake in the subsidiary through IPO or other modes, the operator of Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar chains said on Thursday. The stake sale will help trim BSElisted Future Retail's interest cost by Rs 150-200 crore and fund expansion of the business, it said. The company currently has outstanding debt of around Rs 4,000-4,500 crore. Kishore Biyani, chief executive of Future Group, said Future Retail owns about 70% stake in the logistics arm. “Future Retail will sell some of stake in Future Supply Chain,“ he told ET.

• SpiceJet to Shed Flab at Management Level: Troubled low-cost airline SpiceJet, under its new promoter Ajay Singh, is working to sharply reduce the number of vice presidents to five from 20 as it seeks to rationalise staff. “The new management sees a lot of excess at the top level and is looking at ways to cut it down. In the toplevel management, we may see a huge cut in the number of vice presidents to five. The management is still working out ways to make that happen,“ said a senior executive, who did not wish to be identified. The executive said that at the same time a large number of exec utives who shifted from the airline to other carriers are likely to be brought back. “Discussions are being held with a lot of executives who were part of SpiceJet during Ajay Singh's earlier stint. Many of them may come back and a few of them are also supporting the airline in more ways than one,“ he said. With the change of guard, a number of positions created by the earlier promoters are being viewed as unnecessary in an airline company, the executive said.

• Flipkart Eyes Sales Worth $8 B This Year: Homegrown online marketplace Flipkart is eyeing sales worth $8 billion (about ₹50,000 crore) in 2015 in terms of total value of goods sold, more than double of $3 billion clocked last year. Increasing Internet penetration and online shopping by youngsters helped the e-commerce firm hit a gross merchandise value (GMV) of $1 billion in March 2014. The Bengaluru-headquartered firm is also targeting to add 100,000 sellers on its platform this year and expects to sell 25 million units (products) per month during the same period, people in know of the development told PTI. “Flipkart has set a target to reach $8 billion in GMV in 2015 and add 100,000 sellers on its platform. It also expects to sell about 25 million products per month by the end of this year,” they added. When contacted, a Flipkart spokesperson said: “We will not be able to comment on this information.” Sources also said Flipkart has set a target of selling one billion goods on this platform annually by 2017-end.

• Ecommerce New Driver for BPO Firms as Demand, Prices Improve: Business process outsourcing companies are once again optimistic about the domestic market, as a new breed of customers including ecommerce firms and existing clients raise spending on customer service. Over the past few years, a slew of BPO companies bowed out of the Indian market as their largest customers ­ telecom firms ­ pushed for lower rates that decimated margins.Outsourcers such as FirstSource and Hinduja Global Solutions exited unprofitable deals and others such as Serco and Concentrix because cautious in signing new deals. Now, the rapid rise of e-commerce firms and some new government projects such as Aadhar and the Jan Dhan Yojana financial inclusion scheme have boosted the need for call centre services. Besides, telcos, too, are willing to pay more for improved services for premium customers.

• Amazon Signs On as Fashion Week Sponsor: Amazon is stepping up its fashion activities worldwide, signing on as the new sponsor of the twice-yearly fashion weeks here. Amazon replaces Indian retailer Wills Lifestyle, which has sponsored the New Delhi fashion shows for nine years. Beginning with the 25th edition starting March 25, the shows will be re-branded Amazon India Fashion Week. It is the second major fashion week sponsorship deal Amazon has signed this month. Last week, the e-commerce giant revealed the group and its fashion sites — Amazon Fashion, East Dane and MyHabit — were becoming the presenting sponsor of New York Fashion Week: Men’s, the first edition of which will be held in July 13 to 16.

• Intel Bets on Women-owned Startups, Internet of Things: Semiconductor giant Intel is looking at investing in women owned startups in India as a part of global program to increase diversity in the technology business.“We are also looking at investing in women owned startups, which is something we haven't done before.We will be doing this worldwide,“ Intel President Renee James, told ET in an exclusive interview in New Delhi last week. James, who was on her maiden visit to India, also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi with whom she discussed the government's Digital India initiative and “what Intel could do for it.“ In January , Intel had committed to spend $300 million to increase workforce diversity .James is spearheading the initiative within Intel. (Read James' exclusive interview in today's Corporate Dossier) In India, Intel is already engaging with women owned businesses.Last year, Intel India had hosted its first ever Supplier Connect Conference for women at its campus in Bangalore. “This conference was to connect women owned businesses with Intel internal end users buyers and explore potential opportunities to work with Intel directly or through Tier 1 suppliers,“ Debjani Ghosh, MD, Intel, South Asia.

• TABcab in talks to raise ₹ 600 cr for expansion: TABcab, the largest taxi operator in Mumbai, has finally entered the deal market. TABcab is in discussions with private equity ( PE) investors for raising $ 100 million (₹ 600 crore) by diluting aminority stake. According to people in the know, TABcab will use the funds for expansion into Delhi and Chennai, where it is in discussions to acquire a leading taxi operator. Buyout talks with the Chennai- based operator were in initial stages, sources said. Though other taxi operators and aggregators like Meru Cabs, Ola Cabs, Easy Cabs, Mega Cabs and Taxiforsure have raised funds from PE firms, TABcab, which runs 2,800 taxis in Mumbai, has never raised money from private investors. Among radio cabs, TABcab is the largest operator in Mumbai today, with a five per cent market share. TABcab is run by SMS Taxi Cabs, a subsidiary of SMS Infrastructure, an infrastructure group promoted by Nagpurbased Sancheti family.

• Amazon to take on rivals by launching its own fashion label: Leveraging the power of technology, the popular US e-tailer giant Amazon is planning to create its niche in the ever-growing lifestyle segment in the country. With this, India will become the first country where Amazon will have its own private fashion labels in order providing unique clothing experiences to its customers, states The Economic Times report. The ET report further revealed, one of them stated that to execute its plans, Amazon India is currently forming a team for its private brands. And in order to steer its ship in the fashion arena, it's planning to hire experienced people onboard. Therefore, the US-based firm has also interviewed people from other known fashion e-tailers like Myntra and Jabong, the leading news daily said.

International:

• Nike CFO Donald Blair Sets Retirement: Donald Blair, chief financial officer of Nike Inc. since 1999, plans to retire on July 31. Andrew Campion, currently senior vice president of finance, strategy and investor relations for the firm, will succeed him as cfo. Blair will serve as cfo through July and remain with the company through October to aid in the management transition. The company noted that, during Blair’s tenure as cfo, “revenue has more than tripled, earnings per share have increased six-fold and the company’s market value has increased over eight times, delivering top-quartile total shareholder return of 16 percent per year.”

• Macy’s Still Battling Old Department Store Foes: Macy’s might have won the decades-long battle to become the dominant department store nameplate, but its old rivals — from Marshall Field’s to Strawbridges to I. Magnin — keep popping up for a fresh challenge. After the Federated-May Co. merger a decade ago, the renamed Macy’s Inc. converted the patchwork of chains to the Macy’s banner. While that might have been the end for the names, Ellia Kassoff, president and chief executive officer of Strategic Marks, moved to claim ownership of the trademarks and started using them on his Web site, retrodepartmentstores.com, which sells T shirts bearing the brand names. He said that trademarks reenter the public domain and are up for grabs once they’re not used for three years.

• Plac to Enter U.S. Retail Market: In its home country of South Korea, Plac is a big deal. But in the U.S., it’s essentially unknown. The brand is hoping to change that by hosting its first men’s wear show during New York Fashion Week and opening a store in New York City this summer. In an interview with chief executive officer Jeong Wook Choi prior to Plac’s show here on Wednesday, he said since its founding in 2009 as a denim brand, Plac has grown to become a complete lifestyle line with more than $42 million in sales and 75 of its own stores in South Korea. Although it offers women’s wear in Korea as well, Plac decided to concentrate on men’s wear only for its U.S. launch.

• L’Oréal Cranks Business in Q4: L’Oréal cranked up its business in the fourth quarter, when comparable-sales gains outpaced financial analysts’ expectations. The French beauty giant said Thursday that like-for-like revenues in the three months ended Dec. 31 increased 4.9 percent to 5.97 billion euros, or $7.46 billion, bolstered by business in its Luxe and Active Cosmetics divisions. In reported terms, sales advanced 8.5 percent. UBS analyst Eva Quiroga called the quarterly results “a clean beat” in a note. “L’Oréal reported a solid finish to the year with like-for-like growth in the fourth quarter well ahead of expectations [UBS’ forecast had sales up 3.1 percent and the consensus estimate was up 3.6 percent],” she wrote.

• Apple bans 'bonded servitude' for factory workers: Apple has banned the practice of bonded labour - where new recruits are charged a fee - from its factories. In its latest audit of factory conditions, the iPhone maker said that any such fee must be paid by its supplier and not the employee. Apple began the audits following criticism of the working conditions in some of its factories. It comes as a report from labour rights group China Labor Watch questioned the low wages earned by some Apple workers.

Tech:

• Apple's App Store now Highlights Games Without Paid DLC: Freemium games are bittersweet. Sure, you get to start playing for free, but if you want to do well at all or gain extra features, chances are you’ll have to spend money on upgrades or extras. That can be annoying, and it seems Apple thinks so too; MacStories spotted a new game category that highlights “Pay Once & Play” content. Basically, these are games that come without any extra purchases or DLC, just like the good old days. It’s a welcome move; while DLC can add longevity to a title, excessively incorporating it can also be deceptive to users who expect to pay a certain amount of money for a title. The change is currently only visible in the UK app store, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see it in other regions soon.

• Xiaomi is Launching Mi.com in US but not for Phones: At today’s Xiaomi press event in San Francisco, there was a lot of recap of the company’s current status and products. Nothing really new, until vice president of international of Xiaomi, Hugo Barra dropped some information about the company entering the US market via Mi.com in a few months. While the Mi line of phones is huge in China, you can’t actually get one of those phones in the United States. Today’s news about Mi.com won’t change that; the direct channel to Xiaomi’s products in the US will be for wearables, headphones and battery packs. Barra told the assembled press, “The amount of effort required to bring those products to the market is an incredible amount of work. We’re accelerating our entering by bringing simpler products.” While the news of Xiaomi entering the US and other markets is less exciting than hoped, it does mean that if the company is able to grab mind share in the states, in the future you might be able to get a Mi Note.

• Windows 10 for Phones Now Available to Try on Some Devices: Just as promised, Microsoft has made its preview for the phone version of Windows 10 available. In order to try it out, you’ll have to install the Windows Insider app (and sign up for the Insider Program, if you haven’t already). Also, this is the first Windows 10 preview (desktop included) to show off the upcoming Project Spartan browser engine. The technology is currently hosted in Internet Explorer, but expect a new browser to replace IE in future builds. There are some caveats; new versions of Office, Mail and Calendar apps are coming in later builds, and the updated Cortana assistant is only available in English and in the US. You’ll also need one of six compatible Windows Phone devices: the Lumia 630, 635, 636, 638, 730 or 830.

• Twitter is Testing Different Multi-Photo Layouts in Tweets: Twitter is apparently testing a new way of displaying multiple images in a tweet. We’ve tested the feature on Twitter.com and the iOS app and found that both will upload in a mosaic format. Twitter confirmed to us that it is testing different multi-photo layouts, so your mosaics may not always look the same. Hopefully, the test means the multi-photo format will soon support GIFs, Vines, and videos, or mixed media in one tweet. The update appears to come after Twitter rolled out a new swipe gesture to dismiss lightbox photos yesterday.

• Apple Now Lets You Test Groups Separately in TestFlight: Apple purchased Burstly last summer, and got the TestFlight beta-testing tool with it. Now it’s starting to add new features to the tool. Starting today, developers can organize their testers into separate groups to easily A/B test changes among them. Developers can choose to quickly send separate builds, provide different instructions, or apply actions to several testers at once with the new update. Testflight announced it would be closing its old TestFllightApp.com website on February 26th; developers should set up their apps for iTunes Connect if they still want to use the service.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Snapdeal Likely to Buy Exclusively.in: Snapdeal.com may be set to acquire Exclusively.in, a site that sells designer brands, as one of the country's largest online retailers looks to strengthen its fashion business to take on rivals Flipkart-owned Myntra and Jabong amid a consolidation drive. Two people familiar with the deal said Snapdeal is expected to take over Exclusively as part of its acquisition plans following the October funding of $627 million raised from Japanese telecom and internet giant Softbank. The deal has been the works for months and is likely to come through as Exclusively founder Sunjay Guleria has agreed to the valuation, said one of the persons. ET couldn't confirm how much Snapdeal is likely to pay for the business.

• E- commerce giants to absorb big real estate this year: After making headlines with their fundraising, deals and valuations through last year, and increasing prime office space absorption across big cities like Delhi- NCR, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, e- commerce majors are set to be in news in 2015 for picking up big real estate. To push their ambitious growth plans, leading companies like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Jabong and Amazon had fired the office- leasing real estate market in 2014. And, if their current plans are any indication, this year could see and even greater uptake by them, say expert. Flipkart’s yet- to- be- signed campus in Bengaluru, likely to be spread over three million square feet, could be the biggest office space deal for an e- commerce firm in 2015. Amazon, Jabong and Snapdeal — and others — are likely to join the race to access big real estate. Flipkart had last year topped the list among e- commerce players by taking up three office properties, totalling 411,000 sq ft, on Bengaluru’s Outer Ring Road, according to data available with Cushman & Wakefield, a leading international consultancy. The e- tailer refused to reveal its real estate plans but it is learnt that Flipkart — which has 10 offices in Bengaluru, where it is headquartered, and 13 warehouses across the country— is in the final stage of signing adeal for its proposed campus, where all its employees will be accommodated. 

• Woodland to Invest Rs 500 Cr in 5 Years: Footwear and apparel firm Woodland will invest up to ₹500 crore in the next five years on expanding its retail network as part of its plans to double the store count to 1,000 by 2020 and enhance capacity. The company has also set a target of ₹2,500 crore revenue by 2020 from RS ,300 crore expected in 2014-15. With Budget around the corner, the company said it was in favour of implementation of GST and removal of excise duty, as for apparels there is no duty, while it has to pay for shoes. “We are targeting to have 1,000 stores by 2020. The company is adding between 50 to 60 new stores every year. We are planning to double our growth in the coming year. We would have an investment of RS 400-500 crore in next five years,“ Woodland Managing Director Harkirat Singh told.

• Bosch and Siemens Household Appliances to Pump in Rs 650 crore for India Expansion: Bosch and Siemens Household Appliances plans to invest about ` . 650 crore in India to expand its factory, add an innovation centre, open own stores and launch many of its global products in a market where Europe's largest home appliances maker wants to figure among the top three players in the next decade. “India is at the core of our emerging market strategy and the place to be in, in the next decade. We want to grow our market share from 1% to around 10% and have the No. 3 position in a decade,“ said Karsten Ottenberg, chairman and CEO of Germany-based BSH Hausgeräte. The company , which opened its first store in India two years ago, plans to have about 200 branded stores in the next 3-5 years from 30 stores at present.

• India's Chocolate Sales Cross Rs 10,000 crore: India's chocolate sales crossed Rs 10,000 crore in 2014, up 24% from a year earlier, according to Euromonitor. On a per capita basis, Indians consumed roughly 117 gm of chocolate a year, the least among emerging markets. However, the sheer size of the market makes India a profitable proposition. Mondelez India, formerly Cadbury India, leads the market with 55.5% share in value terms, with five of its brands among India's top 10.

• Snapdeal for Single-Factor Authentication: E-commerce major Snapdeal has sought a staggered approach for ushering in single-factor authentication regime for small value transactions, starting initially with a cap of RS 3,000. Currently, two-step authentication is generally prevalent in the country. First step of authentication is feeding PIN and next step is punching in of secure code or One Time PIN. In December, the RBI had indicated that it will soon come out with single factor authentication payment norms for low value e-commerce transactions without any compromise on security. “I think RBI should follow it in steps. May be the first step should be somewhere around the RS 3,000 mark,“ Snapdeal founder and chief executive Kunal Bahl said. Once the RBI gets confident about its working and if there are no instances of fraud, the same limit can ₹10,000, he said.be taken up to ` Bahl, however, cautioned that the limit should not be set at an insignificantly small amount.

• Tatas Hit a Hurdle Over `Vistara' Trademark: The Tatas are facing `objection' in registering `Vistara' trademark for their aviation joint venture with Singapore Airlines which began operations last month. Vistara is the brand name for Tata SIA Airlines, where Tata Sons hold a 51% and the remaining 49% is with Singapore Airlines. It started commercial flight operations as a full service carrier on January 9, while the application for `Vistara' trademark was filed on June 2, 2014. After examining the application, Registrar of Trade Marks, Delhi, said it is “liable to be refused“. The status of the application shows “objected“ in the latest publicly available update from the Controller General of Patents Design & Trade Marks.

• Reckitt Benckiser Seeks to Supercharge its Ops: Reckitt Benckiser, maker of Dettol soap, Lizol floor cleaner and Veet hair remover, will restructure operations and prune costs to deal with slowing sales across markets, including India, the company said. This will include less travel by executives, manufacturing rationalisation and even reduced use of office stationery -all as part of Project Supercharge that was announced by the British consumer goods company's CEO Rakesh Kapoor late last week to drive margin expansion and cost savings of £100-150 million in 2015. A geographic restructuring will reduce business clusters to two from three and make reporting structures linear, accelerate decision making and allow better co-ordination. India, under Reckitt Benckiser's (RB's) Developing Markets group, will be part of the cluster that clubs Latin America and Asia with the Middle East and Africa. RB India did not specify how the reporting would change.India has thus far been regional headquarters for Southeast Asia, covering 12 nations, including Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, with CM Sethi heading this cluster as senior vice-president.

• iTraveller Raises Rs 6 Cr in Series A: Online trip planning startup iTraveller has raised ₹6 crore in Series A funding from ah! Ventures, LetsVenture and Mantra Ventures. The deal underlines the rising interest of early-stage investors in the online travel space. Incubated at Kochi's Startup Village in 2011, the Bengaluru-based startup was founded by former Wipro and Cognizant consultant Shiju Radhakrishnan. iTraveller is now targeting $1 bil lion in sales over the next five years. “Our singular focus is to achieve scale, from the current 20-room nights a day to over 100-room nights, within 12 months,“ said founder & CEO Radhakrishnan. The website already has 2 lakh trips created by users, featuring over 20 travel destinations and 60 native wholesale suppliers. “iTraveller has been getting good traction both from customers and other strategic partners,“ said Abhijeet Kumar, founding partner, ah! Ventures.

• Online furniture store Urban Ladder may raise Rs 310 crore, in talks with Sequoia Capital: Online furniture store Urban Ladder is in talks with Sequoia Capital, existing investors Steadview Capital, SAIF Partners and Kalaari Capital to raise more than $50 million (Rs 310 crore) at a valuation of about $150 million, according to two investors directly involved in discussions. Sequoia has committed to lead the fund-raising round, one of them said, and more investors could be brought in before the deal is closed. The twoyear-old company will use the money to acquire customers and expand its product portfolio, another person familiar with the discussions said. All of them declined to be identified. Bengaluru-based Urban Ladder, which has so far raised $26 million, declined to comment. Sequoia did not reply to emails sent by ET.

International:

• Apple `Planning' Self-driving Car: Technology giant Apple is looking beyond mobile devices to learn how to make a self-driving electric car, and is talking to experts at carmakers and automotive suppliers, a senior auto industry source familiar with the discussions said on Saturday. The Cupertino, California-based maker of phones, computers and, soon, watches is exploring how to make an entire vehicle, not just designing automotive software or individual components, the auto industry source said. “They don't appear to want a lot of help from carmakers,“ said the source, who declined to be named. Apple is gathering advice on parts and production methods, focusing on electric and connected-car technologies, while studying the po tential for automated driving, the source said.

• China’s Top Two Taxi-Hailing Services Confirm That They Will Merge: The spirit of Saint Valentine’s Day is in full effect in China’s taxi app space today after the country’s two biggest players — Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache — confirmed that they will merge. Media reports of a possible alliance surfaced late this week. Xinhua — China’s state-run news service — reported that the companies will retain their respective branding and businesses after the merger. Neither side has disclosed the price of the deal, but analysts estimate the value of the combined entity at around $6 billion. That’s because both services are believed to account for more than 95 percent of the taxi-hailing app market in China, which is estimated at 150 million monthly users. Yet, despite their dominance, the two are coming together to end a war of attrition which has seen each side make financial concessions and cut their fees to lure taxi drivers to their platform. In short, fighting each other was bad for business — pulling in the same direction makes more sense. The alliance may also help weather future government regulation which, for now, has not cut into either business.

• Italy's richest man, Nutella billionaire Ferrero dies: Billionaire Michele Ferrero, whose global chocolate empire made him Italy's richest man, has died aged 89. His privately-owned firm is famous for its chocolate-hazelnut Nutella spread, Ferrero Rocher chocolates, Kinder eggs and Tic Tac sweets. Mr Ferrero died on Saturday at his Monaco home after months of illness, according to his company. Italian President Sergio Mattarella called him a "born entrepreneur". Mr Ferrero's father, a pastry maker named Pietro, developed the forerunner to Nutella in 1946, called Giandujot, combining a small amount of cocoa and lots of hazelnuts to make an affordable luxury at a time chocolate was expensive.

• France wins deal to sell Rafale combat jet to Egypt: France has confirmed a deal to sell 24 Rafale combat jets to Egypt in a deal worth €5bn euros (£3.7bn; $5.7bn). The deal is a breakthrough for the French defence firm Dassault which has spent years trying to win an export order for the fighter jet. The deal also includes a naval frigate and related military equipment. France has benefited from a push by Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi to upgrade the nation's military hardware. Last year France won a contract to sell Egypt four frigates in a €1bn deal - its first big contract from Egypt in around 20 years. A statement from the office of French President Francois Hollande confirmed the latest deal and said it would be signed in Cairo on Monday by French defence minister Jean-Yves Drian. France is hoping to sell 126 of the Rafale jets to India, but the deal has yet to be finalised.

• Alibaba Attracts SEC's Attention: Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Friday it was asked by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for information about its dealings with a Chinese regulator, coming just five months after the company's stock market debut. The SEC's request follows an unusually public fracas between Alibaba and China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce, or SAIC, over the issue of fake products being sold on the company's websites and a series of related lawsuits filed in the United States. The e-commerce titan said in a statement it was cooperating with the SEC's request, but gave no details about what the regulator specifically wanted. "The SEC letter states it should in no way be construed as Alibaba Group having done anything wrong or there having been any violation of securities law," Alibaba said.

• Japan Hobbles Out of Recession: Japan’s economy expanded less than economists estimated in the fourth quarter, underlining the difficulty in stoking growth while export gains are undermined by weak investment and consumption at home. Gross domestic product grew at an annualized 2.2 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31, the Cabinet Office said on Monday in Tokyo. The median projection of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a 3.7 percent increase. Nominal GDP, which is unadjusted for price changes, rose an annualized 4.5 percent from the previous quarter. The softness of the rebound shows Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s challenge to revive the world’s third-largest economy from two decades of stagnation. Wage rises and increased consumer spending are likely to be pivotal this year to spur activity beyond exports, where the lower yen has contributed to surging profits at companies like Toyota Motor Corp.

Tech:

• After Google Maps, a digital database of the next billion Indians: Unique Identification After quitting his lucrative people in India. He is He has set up a core team of engineers to develop this platform, which will “When you talk about an information platform for the next billion, Aadhaar is a very important tool. But a lot more can be done to make information more useful and powerful, for everyone,” Katragadda says. “Aadhaar is the enabling infrastructure, and the government is looking at other tools as well. But there is a need to build a more enabling infrastructure.” “Today, all that people like, say, slum- dwellers have for identity is a little Aadhaar slip or a voters’ card. How about an information system that lets you know who these people are and track what they do? This might even solve the problem of finding a reliable maid or a trustworthy driver,” he added. Trust comes through validation or authentication by more people, almost the same way as the Google Mapmaker works. “Everything in Mapmaker was drawn and authenticated by some people and machines.” Katragadda, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and a doctor of philosophy ( Robotics) from Carnegie Mellon University, is credited with developing Google Mapmaker, a tool that eventually led to the creation of Google Maps. He had joined Google in 2002, when a robotics start- up he founded in San Francisco was acquired by the search giant. Subsequently, he moved to India to set up Google’s India operations, the first international engineering centre for the Mountain View, Californiaheadquartered company. 

• 10 Years Later, YouTube is Still Pure Internet: YouTube is the internet in its purest form. For better or worse, this is the audio-visual mirror of humanity’s digital experience. YouTube was launched 10 years ago as a video dating site inspired by the Hot or Not site. That’s why its anniversary is Valentine’s Day. Three guys launched an online dating video site and the internet said, “nope” and so they transformed into a destination for people to upload videos for auction sites. People started using the auction video site. But the videos that were uploaded and shared to Myspace pages and on blogs didn’t quite fit the footage-for-auctions business plan.

• Snapchat is Experimenting with Localized Our Stories Feature: Snapchat’s ‘Our Stores’ feature is usually centered around an event like the World Cup or the Grammys. But, it looks like the app is experimenting with a localized version of the feature. TechCrunch reports that the company has launched a Los Angeles version of the Our Stories called TGIF that shares snaps with people within that city. TechCrunch says Snapchat has confirmed that it is testing the new feature. So expect to see more of this when you’re snapping in major metropolitan areas.

• Twitter is Experiencing a Glitch that Pushes Old Notifications: If you’re seeing notifications from Twitter replies, retweets, favorites and DMs that occurred hours – or even days – ago, you’re not alone. A number of Twitter users are complaining that their accounts are alerting them to phantom notifications for old activities. The bug appears to affect users on desktop clients, mobile apps and Twitter.com. We’re even seeing emails come for delayed notifications. The glitch started earlier this week, but old notifications seem to be pouring in more noticeably within the past few hours. In addition to delayed notifications, some users are also receiving duplicate updates for favorites.

• One Year In, Nadella Is Planning Microsoft’s Long And Short Game: Golfers like to talk about their long game and their short game. Maybe it’s useful to look at Microsoft’s strategy that way too. Since Satya Nadella took over just over a year ago as CEO at Microsoft, he has started to redirect the company, looking at the short term, while perhaps beginning to formulate a plan for the next wave of computing. Microsoft is the quintessential personal computer company. It came of age with the rise of the PC and thrived in the 1990s and early 2000s by giving us the tools to operate and be efficient on those machines. Surely, we complained about it — and made many a joke about blue screens of death — but in the end Microsoft provided the fuel for the PC revolution, making its founders rich beyond measure as a result. Over time, as we’ve witnessed the shift to mobile, Microsoft has let the mobile revolution pass it by. It wasn’t completely oblivious to it, but its attempts can be characterized as feeble swings and misses, Today, it finds itself buried in marketshare terms behind iOS and Android, which between them controlled more than 95 percent of the world market last year.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Feisty Flipkart's Appetite for Funds Remains Ravenous: Internet retailer Flipkart has begun preparations for an encore to its mammoth fundraising exercise of last year and is looking to (₹10,500 crore) raise $1.7 billion in the coming months, four people familiar with its thinking have told ET. The Bengaluru-based firm, which created a record in India's startup funding history last year by mopping up $1.9 billion in three rounds of fundraising, is looking at a valuation of around $15 billion in the latest funding round that two of the people cited above said would be anchored by its biggest investor, US-based Tiger Global Management. Tiger could invest up to $700 million in several tranches, these sources said. A so-called “handshake agreement“ had been reached between Flipkart and the New York-based firm that had been sealed during the recent visit of its partner, Lee Fixel, said these sources. “It (the fundraising) is being considered,“ said a person directly familiar with the plan, adding that the amount being talked about was in the “ballpark“ of $1.7 billion.

• TaxiForSure Founders to Hand Keys to Ola Post Deal: TaxiForSure co-founders Raghunandhan G and Aprameya Radhakrishna may have to step down after the company is merged with larger rival Ola, which, however, is expected to retain the cab aggregator's top management and other employees, according to three persons with direct knowledge of the developments Ola is in an advanced stage of finalising a deal to buy TaxiForSure at an estimated $200 million (₹1,250 crore) in stock, as it sets to take on the heavilyfunded Uber for dominance of India's taxi aggregation market. The deal is expected to close later this week. “The deal is being signed at about $200 million in mostly stock-swap with a swapping ratio of about one Ola share for seven TaxiForSure shares,“ an investor in TaxiForSure said. The merger is essentially being driven by investors in the two companies to form a strong taxi alliance against Uber.Ola and TaxiForSure will continue to operate as separate brands, at least for a while -as Flipkart did with Myntra and Naspers' Ibibo with redbus, according to one person aware of the developments. The deal will give Ola -which has at least 3,200 employees and operates in 67 cities -a ready workforce of 1,500 trained call-centre, onboarding and operations executives, adding muscle and reducing the time the company will need for further expansion. “After the transition period is over, TaxiForSure founders -who will be mostly paid in cash -are likely to exit the company . That is the agreement,“ the TaxiForSure investor said. Raghunandhan, CEO, and Radhakrishna, director, each own 5.5% in the company.The transition, or merger, is expected to take 6-18 months to complete.

• Punit Renjen Appointed Global CEO of Deloitte: Punit Renjen, the chairman of the board of Deloitte US, has been appointed as the new chief executive officer of Deloitte Global (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu), the first India-born senior executive to head one of the Big Four consultancies. “Thank you for the trust you have placed in me and you have my commitment to serve the global network. I will do my best to serve the global network.....“ Renjen wrote in an e-mail to all global directors and partners last Friday. Renjen will replace Barry Salzberg as the global CEO from June 1, when the firm's financial year starts. He got 98% of the 5,400 votes to become the global chief executive officer, according to a separate mail sent to all employees on Monday afternoon. Deloitte LLP, the US member firm, recorded $14.91 billion in revenue in the year ended May 31, 2014.

• Dilip Shanghvi Diversifies to Expand his Business: Dilip Shantilal Shanghvi, the world's richest pharma tycoon and Sun Pharma managing director, is increasingly expanding his business empire into new and diverse areas, making big investments in areas such as renewable energy and payment banking. This weekend, Shanghvi announced a ₹1,400-crore investment to pick up 23% stake in ailing renewable energy company Suzlon through his personal investment firm Dilip Shanghvi Family & Associates (DSA). Earlier this month, Shanghvi applied for licence to run a payment bank, a differentiated bank that can accept deposits up ₹1 lakh from individuals but to ` can't lend money .

• Infy to buy California’s Panaya for $ 200 mn: In line with the strategy laid out by its Chief Executive and Managing Director Vishal Sikka, Infosys on Monday said it would buy Panaya, which provides automation technology, in an all- cash deal of $ 200 million (about ₹ 1,244 crore). The company said it was expecting all the senior management and employees of Panaya to join. They would report to Abdul Razack, senior vice- president and head ( analytics and big data). The valuation is six times Panaya’s revenues, Infosys said, adding it was a good buy considering the “ tremendous piece of technology” Panaya brought to the table. Subject to customary conditions, the transaction is likely to close before March 31. This will be the Bengaluru- based information technology services company’s second largest acquisition so far. The largest was of Zurich, Switzerlandheadquartered management consulting firm Lodestone for $ 345 million (₹ 1,930 crore) in September 2012.

• Maruti bets on new models to keep edge: Suzuki’s ‘ KitnaDetiHai’ brand campaign captured the imagination of the consumer. It highlighted a national obsession with fuel economy, and back then, Maruti was the last word in making cars with low running costs. So, losing the lead in fuel efficiency over the years to a clutch of rivals such as Tata Motors, Chevrolet, Hyundai and most recently Honda, could not have been good for Maruti’s brand image. Five years after the campaign, Maruti has embarked on a drive to make sure it never again falls behind in fuel efficiency. The first leg of this strategy was the launch of the Ciaz sedan in October last year, which beat the Honda City by asmall margin to emerge as India’s most fuel- efficient car at26.2 kmpl ( diesel variant). The next legofthestrategy will take the mileage ceiling up by a wide margin.

• A $100,000 Space Odyssey on XCor's Luxury Rocket Plane, Anyone?: A few Indians have booked their tickets in a passenger spacecraft that will blast them into space, 100 km beyond earth's gravity , to a spot from where one can see the curvature of our planet, shelling out about $100,000, ₹62 lakh.or ` Xcor Aerospace, the US firm that is developing the tourist rocket plane, has tied up with Mumbaibased Fortpoint Automotive to woo more Indians to take its space tours, expected to take off next year. “We have sold over 300 tickets worldwide, including a few to Indians,“ said Peter Van Rooy, global sales manager at Xcor Space Expeditions. “In front of the passenger and above there is total blackness, underneath one will see the curvature of the earth,“ he said. Citing confidentiality reasons, Rooy did not disclose the names of the Indians who have booked seats for the point-to-point one-hour flight from California.

• Hitachi eyes Rs 11,000 crore turnover in FY 2015, to hire 3,000: Japanese industrial solutions giant Hitachi is targeting a turnover of around Rs 11,000 crore (210 billion yen) in FY 2015 from India and will hire around 3,000 people to expand its business here. "Hitachi will contribute to the medium and long-term development of Indian society through the social innovation business which integrates cutting-edge IT and infrastructure technologies developed over many years, and strive to expand consolidated revenues in India in FY 2015 to 210 billion yen," Hitachi said in a statement. The company that currently has 31 business bases and over 10,000 employees in India, further said it "is planning to increase the number of group employees in India in FY 2015 to approximately 13,000." It will also continue its plan and implement investments totalling 70 billion yen (around Rs 3,670 crore) over the four years from FY 2012 to FY 2015, the statement added.

• Walmart to set up 15 cash & carry stores in Andhra Pradesh in 5 years: Retail giant Walmart is planning to open 15 cash-and-carry stores in Andhra Pradesh in the next five years, the state government said today. This was stated by President and CEO of Walmart India Krishna Iyer during a meeting with Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here. This followed Naidu's meeting with David Cheesewright, President and CEO of Walmart International, at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, a government release said. Iyer informed the Chief Minister that Cheesewright had asked him to meet Naidu and unveil Walmart India's plans for Andhra Pradesh. Iyer thanked Naidu for introducing the single- desk policy and 21-day clearance plan and said it will make the investment environment conducive in the state.

• Safilo launches 'Fossil's' eyewear collection in India: Eyewear specialist Safilo and US-based watchmaker Fossil today launched the 'Fossil's' eyewear collection in India. The launch of the eyewear range in the country mark its into entry into the Asian market, Safilo said in a statement. 'Fossil's' eyewear will be available in India in six different ranges. "The eyewear collection merges modern details with an authentic vintage aesthetic, featuring unique and timeless design," the company said. Italian eyewear manufacturer Safilo's portfolio encompasses brands like Hugo, Boss, Banana Republic, Polaroid, Gucci and Pierre Cardin, among others.

• Dynamatic to be Single Source Airbus Supplier: French plane maker Airbus Monday said it has signed a contract with Dynamatic Technologies to be the single source supplier of flap track beams for its widebodied A330 planes, underscoring its encouragement of the Modi government’s Make in India campaign. Flap track beams are guide rails on which the wing flaps that guide the direction, speed and balance of an aircraft move. The Airbus-Dynamatic contract, which two sources confirmed as worth over $150 million is Airbus’ biggest after its pact with stateowned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) to make forward passenger doors for its A320 planes. “We are really encouraged by the new government. It is opening up prospects of growth in the supply chain for Airbus,” said Olivier Cauquil, senior vice president for procurement at Airbus. Last year, Airbus and Dynamatic had signed a memorandum of understanding for the Bangalore-based company to become a tier-1 supplier for the beams to Airbus. It already is a single source supplier for the beams on the A320s, Airbus’ most popular product in the world. 

• AB InBev to Go Solo in India: Anheuser-Busch InBev, the world's largest brewer, has exited its joint venture with Ravi Jaipuria's RJ Corp to begin independent operations in the country through its wholly-owned entity Crown Beers. The dissolution of the JV is a strategic decision by the Belgian owner of Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois brands to grow its business in India through additional brand investments and capacity expansion, a joint statement issued by the companies said. Following completion of this transaction and a transitional period, staff and operations will transfer to Crown Beers, the statement added. “We see long-term opportuni ties to grow our business in India. We plan to grow our premium brands and give consumers increased access to our portfolio of beers,“ Mi chel Doukeris, AB InBev zone president for Asia-Pacific, said in a statement.

• Future in Talks to Buy Birlas' Wet Wipes Brand: Future Consumer Enterprise is close to buying wet wipes brand Kara from the Aditya Birla Group, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said, as the Kishore Biyani-owned company works on its strategy to grow annual . 10,000 crore sales five-fold to ` in the next five years. “It's a small deal,“ said the person, who didn't disclose the financial terms. The seven-year-old brand is owned by Birla Cellulose. It has an annual capacity to produce more than 87 million wipes, which are mainly sold at pharmacy and modern retail stores. The brand also has institutional clients such as Jet Airways and hotel chains Taj and Four Seasons. Kara, which is currently into premium skin, baby and hand wipes, will be beefed up by the Future Group to offer the entire range of paper products and disposables, the person said.

International:

• Japan's Old Flip-phones Soldier on While Smartphones Shrink: Japanese shipments of traditional flip-phones rose in 2014 for the first time in seven years while smartphone shipments fell, highlighting Japanese consumers' tenacious attachment to the familiar and typically less expensive older models. Flip-phone shipments rose 5.7% to 10.58 million in 2014, data from market researcher MM Research Institute shows. Smartphone shipments fell 5.3% to 27.7 million, down for a second year. Users in Japan pay some of the highest smartphone fees among developed nations, the telecommunications ministry says, while flipphone rates are among the lowest.Many Japanese accustomed to years of deflation are content with oldstyle flip-phones offering voice calling, email and in most cases basic Internet services. Japanese electronics companies Panasonic Corp and NEC Corp have pulled out of the consumer smartphone business, unable to compete with dominant brands Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. They still make flip-phones, though, competing in a crowded market with Fujitsu Ltd and Sharp Corp, among others.

• Start-up Shopping App Mallzee Partners with Samsung: Mallzee, a personal shopping application, has teamed with Samsung UK and Ireland on a yearlong partnership aimed at promoting discount shopping on the smartphone. Founded in 2012 by the 27-year-old Edinburgh-based Cally Russell, Mallzee has raised 600,000 pounds, or $922,185 at current exchange, from a group of angel investors. It incorporates easy swipe interaction, offering shoppers access to more than 100 fashion brands and retailers. The names range from Asos.com, H&M, Topshop, Zara and Urban Outfitters to DKNY, Lacoste, Michael Kors, and Paul Smith. The app allows the user to create his or her style feed, and there is a cost alert feature that notifies shoppers once there is a price reduction on an item they like.

• Yoox Unveils Chinese Mobile Site: Yoox is going mobile in China. Yoox Group entered China around five years ago, hosting flagship online shopping sites on the mainland for fashion brands such as Emporio Armani. Two years later, the e-tailer launched its own site for Chinese consumers. Now, indicative of the rise of mobile commerce in China, Yoox, under the domain name Yoox.com.cn here, revealed on Monday that it is launching a mobile e-commerce app for its Chinese clientele. “In China, the mobile shopping market is skyrocketing,” said Luca Martines, the Milan-based Yoox Group International Markets director.

• Warburg Pincus to Invest $125M in Indonesia Retail: Warburg Pincus is betting $125 million on the growth of retail in Indonesia. The private equity giant is teaming with real estate firm Nirvana Development to create a joint venture that will “build and develop a best-in-class retail platform in Indonesia,” according to a statement. Pincus has the option to invest another $75 million into the venture, which will put together hypermarket-anchored shopping malls in the island nation’s second- and third-tier cities. The companies intend to “capitalize on the growth potential driven by rapid urbanization, emerging consumption and outsize economic growth in these areas.” The partnership, subject to shareholder approval and expected to close in the second quarter, will expand Nirvana’s operations and be seeded with four operating assets and other projects under development.

• Jason Cater Joins Peter Millar as VP of Design and Merchandising: Jason Cater has joined Peter Millar as vice president of design and merchandising — collection. Cater has 17 years of experience and has been with Ermenegildo Zegna for the past eight where he was vice president of wholesale for Ermenegildo Zegna Sportswear, Shoes, and Leather Goods. Before that, he was the national sales manager at Paul & Shark. “Jason’s experience in the luxury sportswear category will be invaluable to Peter Millar as the company continues to experience considerable growth in the U.S. and internationally,” said Scott Ruerup, president, Peter Millar Collection.

Tech:

• Google now has a Chinese version of its YouTube channel for developers: Google today launched a Chinese language version of its YouTube channel for developers, which features free educational content for learning about developing for the company’s services and technologies. The company’s new channel features original content in Chinese, as well as providing select content from the English Google Developers channel with Simplified Chinese captions. Over time, Google says that more original content will be added to the channel and it will leverage volunteers to help add more Chinese captions to existing English videos.

• Revamped iAnnotate App Launches on Android: Working with PDF documents on an Android device can be a frustrating experience if you’re trying to make edits while on the move. To tap into that market and potentially alleviate some of those frustrations, Branchfire has today announced the launch of its iAnnotate app on Android devices. As a new listing and 1.0 release in the Play Store, this version is a clean break from its predecessor which was released a little over two years ago. The new app no longer holds the $9.99 price tag of previous versions and is available for free. iAnnotate for Android allows users to read, mark up and share PDF documents as you might expect, but the most notable update is to the interface, which has been streamlined for ease of use.

• $1.75 Million in Bitcoin Stolen from Chinese Exchange Bter: Even as Bitcoin is starting to shake things up in the US, all is not well in the cryptocurrency world. China-based Bitcoin exchange Bter was hacked on Valentine’s Day and $1.75 million worth of Bitcoin was stolen. The company hasn’t revealed much about the breach, except that 7,170 BTC was taken from its cold (offline) wallet on February 14 via a single transaction (link) and that the platform is suspending operations until further notice. The company has offered a bounty of 720 BTC – about $170,000 – for the retrieval of the stolen currency. It says it will arrange withdrawals of unaffected funds at a later date.

• LG's New Smartwatch is a Stylish All-metal Affair: LG is set to unveil the Watch Urbane, its latest Android Wear smartwatch that features a round stainless steel body and full circular Plastic OLED (P-OLED) display at this year’s Mobile World Congress next month. Aimed at fashion-conscious gadget aficionados, the Watch Urbane looks more like a traditional timepiece and features a narrower bezel than the sporty G Watch R, and comes in polished silver and gold finishes. It also has a natural leather strap that can be replaced with any 22mm wide band to suit the wearer’s style. Under the hood, it’s quite similar to the Watch R. It runs Android Wear on its 1.3-inch display with a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 processor, 4GB memory and 512MB RAM, and a 410mAh battery that allows for just about two days of use on a single charge on the previous model. It also features a photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor to measure heart rate and average pulse during workouts.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• VC Funds Plan $2-b Engine for Indian Startups: Venture capital investors are on the road to raise nearly $2 billion, or about ₹12,400 crore, in new funds this year to power the next generation of emerging businesses in India's booming startup sector. Top-rung investors such as Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital and SAIF Partners -who recently scored rich returns on consumer Internet ventures such as Flipkart and Justdial -are leading the fund-raising momentum that continues from 2014 when venture funds raised over $1 billion for Indian startups. The uptrend in fund-raising levels indicates a return of confidence in Indian startups among overseas investors, typically pension trusts, corporate endowments and financial institutions who in vest in such funds. “We're seeing a rekindling of interest in the Indian market in the past 6-8 months,“ said Karthik Reddy , managing partner at Blume Ventures, a Mumbai-based seed stage investor. “Exits remain a concern among limited partners (investors in venture capital funds),“ he said. “But they seem optimistic that the path to these exits is being built,“ he added.

• Sellers on Amazon, Flipkart Scaling up to Grab Top Slots: Sellers registered with Amazon India and Flipkart, two of the country’s largest etailers, are aggressively scaling up to become dominant players as the battle for e-commerce heats up amid restrictions on majority foreign ownership in multi-brand retail that keep the two companies from selling directly to consumers. Cloudtail, a 49:51 joint venture between Amazon Asia and Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy’s personal investment vehicle Catamaran forged last summer, is fast becoming a large seller on Amazon India, accounting for a little over 8% of products sold on the portal since it became operational in August last year.

• Hyundai Sets Sights on 5-Lakh Mark, to Unveil New Models: South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor has lined up a slew of new models, especially in the utility vehicle segment, for the Indian market this year as it seeks to cross the half-a-million sales mark in the country by 2016. To achieve the target, the Indian unit of the carmaker is aiming to grow its sales this year at 14% to 4.65 lakh units, or double the predicted growth rate of the market. To outpace the market, the company will be launching the new Verna in February, followed by the i20 crossover in April and a compact sport-utility vehicle (SUV), codenamed GCi, in the festival season of 2015. Bo Shin Seo, CEO and MD at Hyundai Motor India, told ET in an exclusive interview that the company has set an aggressive target for itself as it expects the Indian automobile market to do better in 2015 compared with the previous year. “We increased our market share in 2014, but we are not satisfied as yet. With the new Verna and a compact SUV coming in, we will look at increasing the market share further. The improving sentiment and probable cut in interest rate on the anvil, we are hoping for an even better year in 2015,“ said Seo.

• Zomato Acquires US Food Portal: Online restaurant guide Zomato has stepped into the lion's den in the United States with a $60-million (₹ 370crore) acquisition of Seattlebased food portal Urbanspoon, a deal which will bring it into direct confrontation with Yelp. The purchase demonstrates a large appetite by Zomato for a significant slice of the vast American market for online food listings, dominated by Yelp, a public listed company and the world's largest. This latest deal -the sixth and biggest acquisition so far by Zomato -will be an all-cash transaction powered by the Gurgaonbased company's most recent round of funding that closed in November. Deepinder Goyal, CEO of Zomato, finalised the acquisition with digital media company InterActive Corp which owns Urbanspoon, last week. “Zomato's traffic will more than double to more than 80 million visitors, probably making us the largest restaurant (only) search company in the world,“ said Pankaj Chaddah, co-founder of Zomato. The startup, launched six years ago by Goyal and Chaddah, former consultants at Bain & Co, now does business in 22 countries.

• Maruti Expects 20% Exports Growth in FY15: India's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India is eyeing 20% growth in vehicle exports this fiscal at 1.2 lakh units, riding on increased sales in non-European markets like Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. In the current fiscal till date, the company has exported over 92,000 units in over 100 countries, a growth of over 23% over previous year and would soon launch its latest model Ciaz in Mexico to add to its export basket. “We are likely to close the financial year with around 1.2 lakh units, a growth of around 20%,“ a Maruti Suzuki India spokesperson told PTI. This growth is on account of multiple factors such as focused efforts on markets such as Africa, Latin America and Middle East, the spokesperson added.“This is in line with the Suzuki mandate to drive exports to these markets from India,“ the spokesperson said. In December, the company's total exports nearly surged three-fold to 11,682 units, as compared to 4,311 units in December 2013.

• Mexican, Indian Firms Interested in Videocon's Telecom Arm: Videocon Telecom, the telecom arm of Videocon Group, has received interests from a Mexican company and an Indian telecom player to buy a 49% stake, Group Chairman Venugopal Dhoot said. But any deal would happen only after the auction of telecom frequencies in February and the government offers more clarity on merger and acquisition rules, he told ET. Without naming the potential investors, Dhoot said: “There are companies wanting to come to India to take advantage of the rapidly growing telecom market in India.“ His brother and group's co-promoter Rajkumar Dhoot told reporters in Gujarat on Monday that Videocon was willing to “give away a 49% in the mobile operating business“. He said the group was even ready to offer the management control to a new investor.

• Move over Resumes, Hackathons are New Hiring Tool: It may be time to move away from cumbersome resumes as the primary resource when it comes to hiring tech candidates. The future of recruitment may lie in hackathons, which are sessions with specifically designed job-related challenges to test candidates and fill in crucial tech positions on a company's roster.The process is faster and, of course, they'll eventually look at the CV. Cab aggregator service Ola and real-estate portal Stayzilla had their product management teams put in place by Venturesity, a startup that creates challenges specific to a job description provided by the company. The company plans to introduce an auction-meets-hackathon model, where multiple companies can offer a job to a candidate with a good profile. “For start-ups and product com panies, hiring is yesterday's problem,“ says Subhendu Panigrahi, co-founder of Venturesity, incorporated in 2013. “We provide the employers a platform to create challenges on par with the actual job role. This brings down the time to hire a candidate to one-third.“ The startup charges recruiters based on the number of successful hires as well as a subscription fee.

• L Capital Asia to Invest in Indian Ecomm Biz: L Capital Asia, the private equity fund sponsored by the LVMH Group, will make a couple of investments of as much as $50 million each in India this year, eyeing e-commerce businesses with a “differentiated“ model and old, family-run enterprises that have lost direction in the current scenario. “Online retail is a very attractive proposition, given the scope of growth in an emerging consumer market like India,“ said Bijou Kurien, member of the strategic advisory board of L Capital. There's a lot of excitement in the online retail space and growth is exceeding offline retail, he said. Prompted by the change in government and signs of economic recovery, L Capital has held talks and considered a few options and may make at least twothree investments this year. The minimum value of each investment will be $30 million to $50 million.

• Hotel Biz to Stay Sluggish in 2015: Hoteliers in India are bracing up for a slightly better but tough year as they expect only a slight improvement in room demand from sub-60% occupancy levels across major cities in 2014. “The industry is seeing a 10% improvement in demand for hotel rooms and that obviously doesn't really look as positive as the pre-2009 time for hospitality ,“ said Patu Keswani, chairman and managing director at mid-market chain Lemon Tree Hotels. “Rates will improve this year, but growth will be subdued till October 2017. That is when the hospitality industry will be buoyant again.“ Hotel owners and operators said the demand-supply mismatch across most gateway cities, which contributed to a major slump in hotel occupancies as well as room rates, will continue this year despite a small pickup in demand.

• Flipkart pays Rs 23.51 crore as penalty for fudging papers: Investors of the e-tailer giant Flipkart may not be happy to read this story. But sadly, the company has started on a wrong foot with the IT department in the new-year. The IT department has imposed a penalty of Rs 23.51 crore on the online retailer for irregularities in its operations. According to an official with Ghaziabad tax department, the company used to collect taxes from its end customers but did not deposit the same with the department. "The said irregularity in the taxes was found after the books of the firm were seized. The company had earlier paid Rs 29 lakhs as penalty," said the official. The official further added that during the investigation, many of the company's listed trade partners were bogus firms and did not exist in reality.

• Ramdev expands empire beyond yoga to FMCG, business poised to touch Rs 2,000cr this fiscal: It may be an unlikely combination -- yoga for inner peace and FMCG for external beauty -- but Baba Ramdev appears to have struck the right pose in both. The guru whose 'easy yoga' has won him a mass following is also cornering the FMCG market with daily use products ranging from soaps and mustard oil to cornflakes. Baba Ramdev's brands seem to have scaled up quite rapidly. For fiscal 2014, Patanjali Ayurved, the company that manufactures the products, clocked a turnover of about Rs 1,200 crore, up from about Rs 850 crore a year earlier and Rs 450 crore in fiscal 2012, company filings and industry sources said. And in the current fiscal, Patanjali is expected to clock a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore, according to Aditya Pittie, CEO, Pittie Group. This marks a 67% jump from the previous fiscal.

• Handicraft Sector Gets Online Push: Handicraft e-commerce in India has been growing steadily in recent years, with numerous startups, and some established players, capitalising on the appeal of traditional Indian arts while making a difference to artisans' lives. “We believe that the local artisans and entrepreneurs deserve a much larger platform than what is available to them today. We are working towards creating a marketplace ecosystem that makes it conducive for them to grow and develop -going from local to national players in their categories,“ said Ankit Nagori, senior vice president, marketplaces, at Flipkart. Flipkart has tied up with multiple government ministries to help artisans shift towards online sales. It has created an exclusive store for Banarasi weaved sarees, as has Snapdeal partnered with India Post to enable Varanasi artisans to sell their work on the online platform.Running closely along these catchall platforms, a clutch of startups have set up innovative business models to help rural artisans reach wider audiences. “Artisans' stories needed to be told,“ said Aishwarya Suresh, 36, an engineer who founded Banna Creations in 2011. “The sector is largely unorganised, so we are trying to streamline the online business process for them.“

• Quikr to push new product commerce: Online classifieds major Quikr is gearing up to take on e-commerce biggies as it plans to launch a service which will let consumers sell their old wares and subsequently buy new products on the site. The Craigslist-like portal, which started off as a listings and used products marketplace, is partnering with a payments firm to build a platform similar to PayPal to facilitate transactions between buyers and small merchants, a senior executive from the company said. New product commerce is becoming a significant part of Quikr's revenues on the back of smaller merchants listing their goods (in categories like mobiles phones) on the site.Quikr's annual gross merchandize value (sales executed through the site) is likely to be in the range of $3 billion and about half of it comes from the sale of new products. The service will directly compete with online retailers, including Snapdeal, Flipkart and Amazon. Earlier, Quikr's closest rival OLX had tied up with Flipkart in a one-off campaign, wherein consumers could sell on OLX and then buy new products on the e-tailer’s site.

• HDFC Bank uses e-clout to launch digital wallet: HDFC Bank is drawing on its clout as a banker to most of the e-retailers to launch a digital wallet and an electronic marketplace for various online merchants. Once an accountholder or cardholder (even non-HDFC Bank debit and credit cardholder) registers for a digital wallet, he can transact on most websites using only wallet credentials. HDFC Bank's entry is significant considering that it is the market leader both as a card issuer and in processing card payments for merchants, and accounts 40% of e-commerce transactions. Also, the digital wallet -which can be accessed from a mobile app or online -will be enabled for contactless payment using Near Field Communication (NFC) by flashing the phone in front of readers that can accept NFC payments. The bank is betting big on the wallet because it is now seeing a shift in e-commerce from desktop to mobile phone.Whether it is tickets or consumer goods, mobiles account for half of purchases in terms of number of transactions.But the complexity of entering card details onto a phone screen also leads to high level of failed transactions. A wallet meets RBI's requirement of two-factor authentication but does away with the hassle of filling card details every time.

International:

• China e-commerce competition intensifies as JD.com, Alibaba go niche: China's JD.com Inc has ratcheted up competition with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd through a $1.55 billion deal with an online car sales portal, as the e-commerce giants gun for high-value markets like cars, tourism and homes. Following over a year of fervent investment activity in China's tech sector, niche e-commerce markets are now in vogue as targets, analysts say. Taking stakes in specialists like Bitauto Holdings Ltd offers an avenue into big-ticket purchases which fall outside major e-commerce companies' traditional focus of day-to-day goods. Such tie-ups also lend smaller firms some of their bigger peers' clout, directing potential customers their way from websites like those of JD.com and Alibaba. "JD.com is trying to position itself as the go-to e-commerce platform, and this could be an important category expansion for them," said John Choi, a Hong Kong-based Internet analyst at Daiwa Capital Markets.

• Gertrude Michelson, Former Macy's Executive, Dies: Gertrude G. Michelson, a retired senior vice president and board member at Macy’s, whose influence extended well beyond the walls of Macy’s to other corporations as well as academic institutions, died Saturday morning, after a long illness, at her home in Greenwich Village. She was 89. Born in 1925, Michelson, known as “G.G.,” first graduated Columbia Law School — she was one of six women in the class of 1947 — before joining the executive training squad at Macy’s. In 1948, she became assistant to the labor-relations manager, and 15 years later rose to vice president of employee personnel, becoming the first woman to hold that slot.

• Kering Replaces Gucci CEO, Creative Chief to Quit: The top two executives at luxury goods brand Gucci will leave the company early next year, as parent Kering SA moves to stem falling sales and the perception of a creative drift in a business known for its shoes, handbags and scarves. Chief Executive Patrizio di Marco will be replaced Jan. 1 by Marco Bizzarri, currently the head of Kering’s luxury division. Designer Frida Giannini, Mr. di Marco’s partner, will leave after showing the next autumn/winter collection in late February. No replacement for her has been announced yet. The abrupt management change comes as the pair have stumbled in efforts to revitalize the storied fashion house’s appeal amid increasingly harsh competition. “Clearly, they haven’t been able to excite consumers enough,” said Exane BNP Paribas analyst Luca Solca, noting the brand’s recent sales declines. “But it’s good news for the company. The firm needs a new start to remain competitive.”

• Volkswagen U.S. Chief Targets ‘Close to 800,000 Deliveries’ by 2018: Volkswagen AG ’s namesake brand will need a little more time to double its vehicle sales in the U.S. than previously planned. The brand is expected to reach “close to 800,000 deliveries target” by 2018, Volkswagen’s U.S. Chief Michael Horn said at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit Monday. Last year, Volkswagen was confident of achieving the target in 2018. The brand will, nevertheless, sell more than 800,000 cars in the region in the medium term, Mr. Horn said without specifying a time-frame. For this year, the German car maker has modest growth plans in the U.S., with hopes to “maintain or slightly expand” growth in the region, Mr. Horn said. Sales of Volkswagen vehicles in North America were down 2% to 599,700 vehicles in 2014.

• McDonald's Is Testing Burgers That Take 7 Minutes To Make: FoodbeastHere's one of McDonald's new customized burgers. McDonald's is testing a customizable burger system that would make it more similar to a Five Guys or Shake Shack. And that includes a seven-minute average wait time, reports The Economist. That's a fairly long wait, considering that the chain's average total drive-thru wait is currently around three minutes, according to a study by QSR Magazine. The Economist visited a new McDonald's outlet near its Oak Brook, Illinois, headquarters. They observed customers building their own burgers by choosing a bun, toppings, cheese, and more from a touchscreen. Customers then waited at their tables until their orders were ready. McDonald's is planning to roll out the new system in 2,000 restaurants by the end of this year, according to The Economist.

Tech:

• Microsoft hits out at Google team over bug report: Google has been criticised by Microsoft after the search giant publicised a security flaw in Windows - which some said put users at risk. Microsoft reacted angrily when Google posted details of the bug online before a patch to fix the issue was released. The disclosure was part of Google's Project Zero initiative that seeks to pressure firms into dealing with security problems more quickly. Several security researchers disagreed with Google's actions. "I feel sorry for the users, who could be impacted by Google's schoolyard antics," tweeted expert Graham Cluley, who noted the company had been criticised for similar behaviour in the past.

• David Cameron’s plan to ban end-to-end encryption is catastrophic for Internet freedom: Earlier today, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced his plan to revive legislation that would allow the UK government to ban applications that use end-to-end encryption to ensure user security. In Cameron’s speech, he asked that “in our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read?” The answer: yes, we do. If the pledge to revive the legislation were to come into effect, services like WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram, Cyberdust and more would ultimately need to make major changes to their services to ensure they could function in the UK. Depending on the specific wording, the law could extend to almost any encrypted service that the government finds worth targeting.

• WhatsApp And Snapchat Could Face UK Ban After Election: UK Prime Minister David Cameron could push for a ban on WhatsApp and Snapchat if he wins this year’s general election. The move would be the result of new surveillance plans proposed in the wake of the terror attacks in France. Cameron, speaking in Paris – in comments quoted by The Independent – said: “In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which…we cannot read?” He made it clear that he wants to stop the use of communications methods that cannot be read by the security services even with a warrant. That would include communications and social media apps like WhatsApp and Snapchat which encrypt their data. WhatsApp added end-to-end encryption to its service in late-2014. 

• Netflix Finally Arrives for UK's TalkTalk YouView Customers: Better late than never’ would be one expression that applies for TalkTalk customers today, as the company has announced that its YouView-based TalkTalk TV packages now include access to Netflix’s streaming services. Of course, you’ll still need to pay for a Netflix subscription separately, you can now just view the content straight on your TV without faffing around. BT and other YouView boxes have been able to access the service since the end of 2014.

• Shazam Now Uses Beacons to Give Location-Based Content: Just as the company teased last week during CES 2015, Shazam has officially announced it is adding context awareness SDK Gimbal to its software to provide location-based recommendations. Using beacon technology to locate the user’s proximity, the app will provide a more contextual recommendation based on when and where the user is at any given time. The move is on par with what Shazam CEO Rich Riley told us last week in the company’s effort to link Shazam closer to users in real life. Instead of being just a search-based app to figure out who sings what song, it wants to deliver content in a personalized manner. Now that its recent updates include beacons, Spotify and Rdio integration and a news feed based on songs users have Shazam-ed, it might not be long before the company unveils its wearable app.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• To Reel in FDI, RBI Eases Fair Value Buyout Norm: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has for the Tata Group relaxed a longstanding rule that bars local companies from paying more than the `fair value' price to buy out its Japanese partner's stake in their telecom joint venture on grounds it is important to attract foreign investment, in what will be viewed as a positive signal at a time the government is trying to boost India's allure to overseas investors. The central bank has allowed the Tata Group to pay Japan's NTT DoCoMo a previously agreed price of ₹58.045 a share for the latter's 26% stake in Tata Teleservices even though it is much higher than an independently determined `fair value' price of ₹ 23.34, sources familiar with the matter have told ET.RBI has further recommended that such a stance should be taken for all similar future deals given India's need to attract foreign funds, they said. “RBI feels that in order to boost FDI (foreign direct investment) in the country, and keeping in mind recent Indo-Japanese business ties, especially in relation to FDI, the government should allow an exception to the extant provisions,“ a senior government official told ET, adding that the central bank had also advised that the gov ised that the gov ernment could apply the same principle in fu ture to all simi lar cases.

• Flipkart Plans a Year-Long Party: A fortnight after raising $700 million, Flipkart has drawn up an ambitious strategy for the year ahead, including snagging the next round of funding at a valuation of $15 billion (₹95,000 crore) and selling goods worth $5 billion by March 2016. India's largest online retailer, which raised nearly $2 billion last year alone, will also begin discussions about a US listing while scouting to buy technology-focussed startups, three people aware of the company's plans told ET. “An IPO is imminent, but a call is likely to be taken only towards the end of the year,“ said one of the sources. Flipkart is now valued at $11.25 billion and expects to sell goods worth $3 billion by the end of the financial year in March 2015. With Amazon set to compete aggressively with an investment of $2 billion in India and Snapdeal raising nearly $1 billion from Japan's SoftBank and others, Flipkart believes it has a real fight on its hands when it comes retaining its leadership in the online retail market. The market is projected by Nomura to be worth $23 billion by 2019.The India unit of the Seattlebased online retailer is fast becoming a dominant player: The company, with eight warehouses, now boasts of 18,000 registered sellers and ships goods to over 17,000 pin codes in the country . It's done this in little less than 18 months since starting operations in the country. Flipkart, with 4,000 sellers, has close to 13 warehouses and ships goods to 300 cities.

• Axe may Fall on India Jobs as Coke Begins Cost-Cut Drive: Coca-Cola India is expected to lay off 4%-5% of its workforce as part of its Atlantabased parent’s move to cut up to 1,800 jobs globally. “We are redesigning our operating model to streamline and simplify our structure and accelerate growth. This redesign work will result in impacts to jobs across our global operations including in India,” a company spokesperson said in response to ET’s query. Coca-Cola India employs about 250 people. Coca-Cola Company had last week announced plans to cut 1,600-1,800 jobs, or about 1% of its global workforce, as part of a drive to cut annual costs by $3 billion in coming years to overcome sluggish sales and pressure on profitability. The job cuts will not impact its India bottling arm Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, which employs over 12,000 people.

• Honda Amaze, Brio Get New Variants: Honda Cars India on Tuesday introduced a new variant of its compact sedan Amaze, priced up to Rs 8.2 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi). The petrol variant of the sedan is priced at ₹7.32 lakh while the diesel grade is priced at ₹8.2 lakh. The company has also expanded the Brio hatchback range by adding two new variants in the lineup. The manual model is priced at ₹5.99 lakh while the automatic variant is priced at ₹6.78 lakh. “The Amaze comes with a new VX (O) grade featuring the audio-video navigation. The new grade will be positioned above the existing VX grade in manual transmission in both petrol and diesel,” Honda Cars India Ltd (HCIL) said in a statement. The Brio range has also been expanded by introducing a new VX grade with black interiors and audio-video navigation, it added.

• 60K Mobiles Sold in a Flash, But Amazon Fails Crash Test: It was Micromax vs Xiaomi on retail websites on Tuesday, with both running successful flash sales of smartphones on e-commerce sites at the same time. In terms of customer satisfaction, Xiaomi buyers not only picked up more devices but also experienced hassle-free transactions. Micromax's wholly-owned unit Yu Televentures, which introduced Yureka smartphones on Tuesday, offered and sold out 10,000 devices priced at Rs 8,999 each within three seconds on Amazon. It was a frustrating experience for most of the 300,000 registered users who flocked to the sale as the site crashed, prompting some of them to vent their ire on Twitter. Xiaomi, which introduced flash sales on Flipkart back in July 2014, sold 50,000 of its Rs 9,999priced Red Mi Note 4G ­ a direct rival to Yureka ­ two minutes and 50 seconds into the sale that started at 2 pm. Xiaomi has scaled up the number of devices offered on the website after it faced a massive consumer backlash when stocks were limited to 10,000 units in each of the first few sales. Top executives say they had greatly underestimated demand for the Mi 3, last year's flagship device. Flipkart's site had also crashed during Xiaomi's first few online sales. The Chinese smartphone maker, which is ahead of Apple and Samsung in its home market, now puts on sale 100,000 units every week. On Tuesday, Xiaomi held two flash sales -the sec Rs 5,999, ond one at 5 pm for the Red Mi 1S, priced at ` which was sold out within 11 seconds.

• Reliance Jio MD to Helm New 4G Services Sales Division: Ahead of the launch of 4G services by Mukesh Ambaniowned Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom firm’s managing director Sandip Das will become a consultant for sales and distribution channels of 4G devices and branding at Reliance Digital outlets. Das will mentor a newly carved division under Reliance Retail in strategy to promote sales of 4G de vices ahead of the much-awaited but delayed launch later this year. The company is yet to launch its services despite having won the spectrum in 2010, a delay attributed by many to anticipation of a better device ecosystem. A memo to the group companies by chairman Mukesh Ambani said Reliance Retail’s Jio division will draw on Das’ marketing and sales knowledge. “It will take deep conviction and substantial expertise to build such LTE device ecosystem,” the memo said.

• Flipkart Content `Objectionable' for Telangana: What does Flipkart, an ecommerce major, have in common with Iambesharam.com, Thatspersonal.com and Ohmysecrets.com? Nothing, it would seem. But all four are on a list of websites the government of Telengana wants blocked for “objectionable content“. A senior government official told ET the state government feels some websites need to be blocked to avert crimes against women as “there is a strong concern that viewing porn sites is leading to crime against women.“ “The state government has sought our help in directing various internet service providers (ISPs) to set up appropriate software tools which will block content violating the provisions of the IT Act of 2000, as amended by amendment ACT 2008,“ the official told ET. The list of ISPs include Airtel, Hathway, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, Tata DoCoMo, Tata Indicom and Vodafone. The country's largest e-commerce play er's name has cropped up for supposedly pro moting and sell ing alleged objec tionable products, but the names of the products couldn't be ascertained. 

• Snowman May Buy Two Startups in Food: Snowman Logistics is in advanced talks to acquire two Bengaluru-based startups specialising in chopping vegetables and assembling sandwiches and burgers before sending them off to quick service restaurants (QSR), as the cold chain warehousing company looks to expand its value-added services in the fastgrowing food space. Snowman, which went public last year, is expected to take at least a month more to close both these deals. The company refused to disclose names of these startups and the possible deal value. “These are startup guys who are doing a decent job. They are unable to scale up because of their own limitations. Snowman can get these guys and can replicate it across the country,” CEO Ravi Kannan told ET. “It is an avenue for us to enter the fruits and vegetable business. That is the whole objective of getting into this.” The two startups run their own processing centres. One of them sources, cleans and chops vegetables, while the other assembles sandwiches, burgers and buns.

• SpiceJet Told to Clear Half of Daily Bills After Jan 15: While the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has given SpiceJet another five-day breather from payment of airport charges, it wants the airline to pay at least half of the daily bill amount post January 15, this year. “We have allowed them breather till January 15, 2015, but post January 15, we want them to pay at least half their daily bills, or give us bank guarantees for the amount that is due. Their daily bill is of about ₹75 lakh and they should pay at least half of it daily,” said a senior AAI official on the condition of anonymity. The official added that SpiceJet’s dues have climbed to ₹260 crore from ₹200 crore in the past one month. This five-day extension from payment of airport charges is the fourth relief that the government has given to the low-cost carrier. The first two extensions were of 15-day each till December 31, 2014. The rest two extensions were of 10 and five days, respectively.

• Max India Heading for Three-way Split: Max India, the flagship company of New Delhi-based serial entrepreneur Analjit Singh, may be split into three divisions —insurance, healthcare and specialty films — with holding companies being created for each of them, two people familiar with the development said. These may then be listed at a later date in a bid to unlock value in the separate businesses, they said. Singh, the founding promoter of Hutchison Max (now Vodafone India), owns a 74% stake in each of two insurance ventures —Max Life Insurance and Max Bupa Health Insurance — and 46% in Max Healthcare, which runs hospitals. Max India has a market value of ₹10,676 crore. “Since the intrinsic value of the (individual divisions) is significantly higher, they will be listed separately on the Indian bourses that will have the ability to attract long-term investors, having special interest in these businesses,“ said one of the persons cited above. 

• SsangYong Launches Compact SUV, but No Plans to Bring Tivoli to India: SsangYong Motor Co, the South Korean auto maker owned by Mahindra & Mahindra, on Tuesday launched a compact SUV, its first all-new vehicle since the Indian company took over control four years ago. The Tivoli, developed with an investment of ₹9.3$320 million, is priced at $15,000-21,500 (.13.4 lakh). The company is targeting to sell 1,00,000 units of the Tivoli, with about 60,000 units marked for exports to markets like China, Europe and Latin America. There are no plans to bring the vehicle to India. SsangYong wants to take the SUV eventually to the North American market, paving way for the brand's entry into the US, a market that parent Mahindra has long been trying to enter with its SUVs and pickups. “It (the new SUV) will be a cornerstone for the company to become a global SUV maker,“ said Yoo il Lee, SsangYong's chief executive.

• Foodsites Spicing up Taste Buds of Indian Travellers: If you're travelling and yearning for some home-cooked food, you might want to check out MealTango.com.It's a website that introduces travelers to unique dining experiences with locals in farms, villages and homes in various parts of the globe. If you're on a train, you could log on to RailYatri.in or TravelKhana.com to get your favourite dish delivered at your next stop. In Hyderabad, Detours India offers tourists personalised culinary experiences, apart from organising food tours.Companies that combine the experience of travel and food are attracting investors and customers and creating niches for themselves in a growing market. Consulting firm Technopak Advisors estimates the unorganised food services market will grow to $58 billion by 2020 from $34 billion in 2013. Pune-based MealTango, launched in August 2013 by Saket Khanna and his wife Neeta Valecha, started off as an in-home dining platform for food lovers seeking authentic home-cooked meals. It has now built up a network of 150 hosts on its site in 35 cities across 13 countries. This month, it will launch MealTango Light, which offers takeaway homecooked meals.

• Offline Merchants May Soon Have Mobile Payments Option:While the online mobile payment space has been buzzing with rapidly growing players such as Paytm, Citrus Pay and PayU, another batch of startups is focusing on enabling mobile payments for offline merchants, starting with the restaurant sector. There is Ruplee, launched four months ago, which enables payments for 50 restaurants across Delhi and Gurgaon, servicing around 1,000 monthly active users. Bengaluru-based Momoe has seen 20 lakhs worth of transactions from its 25 partner restaurants since launching this past August. And then there is eightmonth-old QuikWallet, currently live in around 100 restaurants with 10,000 users across Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. “Mobile payments would definitely become the 'new creed' in restaurant payment, with people getting really bored of handing over their card to get swiped,” said Jishnu Dutta, COO of Impresario, whose restaurants -including Social Offline, Smokehouse Deli, and Salt Water Cafe -have pointof-sale systems fully integrated with QuikWallet. It sees around 150-200 transactions employing the service per day nation-wide.

• AppVirality raises funds from Rajan Anandan, others: Hyderabad-based start-up AppVirality Inc. has raised an undisclosed amount from investors in the US and India. The investors include Rajan Anadan, managing director of Google India Pvt. Ltd, Ravi Gururaj, chair of Nasscom Product Council , Ashim Mehra, vice president at Baron Capital, and Mohit Saxena, co-founder of InMobi, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. AppVirality, founded in 2014 by Ram Papineni and Laxman Papineni, is planning to use the funds for further product development and hiring, it added. AppVirality’s technology solution helps mobile app developers identify and implement growth techniques without having to code. In addition, the company targets users based on factors like location and behaviour to make the timing of campaigns effective.

International:

• Sainsbury's to cut 500 support jobs in cost cut push: Sainsbury's will cut 500 jobs at its store support centres as part of its plans to cut costs. The cut represents about 13% of staff in the roles affected, the supermarket chain said. But the reduction in staff could affect more people as the supermarket abolishes some jobs and moves workers to other roles. In November, Sainsbury's said it planned to make £500m of savings in the next three years. There will be a 12-week consultation process to decide precisely which jobs will go.

• McDonald's defends 'Signs' advert from 'negative comments': McDonald's has defended its latest US advertising campaign after it "sparked commentary" from social media users saying they were exploiting tragedies. The advert shows restaurant signs with messages that have been written for community members over the years. Although some praised the company for reflecting the lives of local people, others said they shouldn't capitalise on events such as 11 September attacks. "Did we expect all this? No," said Deborah Wahl, chief marketing officer. "Good advertising creates emotion," she said. "We Remember 9 11," reads one sign. Another, saying "Boston Strong" refers to the marathon bombing which killed three people.

• Airbus 'exceeds targets' ahead of A350 take off: Airbus has said it "exceeded its targets for 2014" and beaten its rival, US aircraft giant Boeing, for numbers of orders. It comes as the first commercial flight of its new A350 airliner is due to take off later this week. Eighty of the aircraft, whose wings are made at Broughton, Flintshire, have been bought by Qatar Airways. The company added that "the best days lie ahead" for the A380, whose wings are also made in north Wales. Airbus announced on Tuesday that it had won 1,456 net orders last year, down from 1,503 in 2013 - but above Boeing's total of 1,432. It means it has enough orders on its books for its aircraft for the next nine years. However, Boeing remains ahead on the number of planes delivered - 723 aircraft compared to Airbus's 629.

• Nasty Gal Taps Sheree Waterson as CEO: Nasty Gal has named Sheree Waterson chief executive officer of the Los Angeles-based e-tailer. Founder Sophia Amoruso will become executive chair of the company, which has been expanding rapidly with its first freestanding store as well as a growing team of senior retail and operations executives. Nasty Gal opened its first storefront in November on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. Waterson joined the company last year as president and chief product officer after leaving Vancouver-based Lululemon Athletica Inc. She spent five years at Lululemon as chief product officer and left shortly after the company’s high-profile recall of too-sheer yoga bottoms.

• EBay Unveils Retail Platform: All About Omni: EBay is determined to make “omnichannel” more than a buzzword. After a year of testing, the e-commerce and technology giant has begun the rollout of its Retail Associate Platform — and already has DSW, Nine West and Aéropostale on board. The tablet-based software was unveiled in late 2013 and offers participating brands a number of ways to enhance their offline experience by tapping into the online world. Providing a mobile point of sale is a given. But the service also helps users measure store performance, locate inventory and access consumer databases, with specific information on purchase history and what items customers placed in their online shopping carts. The platform was built to level the playing field between associate and consumer through data, mobile technology and good, old-fashioned in-person customer service, said David Geisinger, eBay’s head of retail business strategy and innovation.

Tech:

• Idea to Replace Roaming Pacts in Delhi, Launch 3G on its Own Network in April: Idea Cellular, India’s No. 3 mobile phone company, plans to launch 3G services in Delhi on its own network in April, a top company executive said, adding that this will make it the first network in the country to use the more efficient 900 Mhz band. The Aditya Birla Group firm had won 5 MHz in the lucrative band in Delhi for ₹3,704.8 crore in February 2014. It already has 2G sites in the circle, which it is upgrading with 3G technology. The company will also set up new 3G sites, Sashi Shankar, chief marketing officer at Idea Cellular, told ET. Until now, Idea has used roaming pacts to offer 3G in Delhi. Overall, the company provides 3G services in 21 service areas of India except Orissa. While it has its own 3G network in 11 service areas, it provides high-speed broadband services in other circles through roaming arrangements with Vodafone India and Bharti Airtel. Idea has 148 million subscribers, of which over 13 million subscribers use 3G services. The mobile phone operator’s marketing strategy for the financial year beginning April will also mirror the data focus of the company. “In the next financial year, the marketing theme is going to be the same because we feel that millions of people in India still need to come online,“ Shankar said.

• Google Launches Flight Search in India: Google has finally launched its flight search tool in India, a move that has been feared by online travel aggregators for some time. The tool allows users to find and compare airfares online and book tickets directly on an airline portal or through a partner aggregator. The new feature from the search giant cuts out online travel aggregators, who provide flight information and take a cut on the tickets they sell. Google's presence in the space could reduce traffic to their portals. Goibibo, meanwhile, has partnered with Google Flight Search to display results from its own portal along with options thrown in by Google search from airline websites, when a user keys in requirements such as destination and travel date. Experts say Google Flight Search will impact online travel agents' marketing expenses, a majority of which is spent on online marketing. “This move by Google will start an on line bidding war among the online travel aggregators,“ said Aloke Bajpai, cofounder and chief executive of ixigo.com, a travel metasearch engine. Ixigo offers a similar tool that aggregates flight information and directs users to airline websites for bookings.

• Twitter in Talks to Acquire Indian Startup ZipDial: Twitter is believed to be in negotiations to buy ZipDial, a startup founded in India that has honed in on the `missed call' practice that is unique to the Indian market, reported Tech Crunch. People in India often hang up before the call is answered, using the `missed call' as a simple alert that comes free-of-cost and becomes the basis of other commercial actions. Sources said the deal is likely to be priced between $30 million and $40 million and may be announced as soon as this week. ZipDial was co-founded by Stanford-educated Valerie Wagoner (CEO), Amiya Pathak (COO), and Sanjay Swamy (chairman).

• Directi Launches Voice App Ringo: Directi has launched an app, Ringo, which allows users to make overseas calls without the Internet, Wi-Fi or carrier minutes at rates that it claims are about 70% lower than those offered by mobile phone companies and creditbased calls over Skype or Viber. The model could well disrupt India’s market for overseas calls, where an estimated $2 billion is spent annually, said Directi founder Bhavin Turakhia. The charges for making international calls through the app will be comparable to local call prices. Making a call to the US via Ringo will cost about ₹1.08 a minute, while Skype charges about ₹1.45 and telecom companies charge ₹8, the serial entrepreneur said. Once a caller downloads Ringo, which is available on Android and iOS app stores, and makes an international call, the app dials out a local call to the user in India and another local call to the overseas user and connects the two over reliable carriers.

• PlayStation Now finally available, bringing PS3 games to the PS4: PlayStation Now, the service that lets you stream games right to your console, is now available for PS4 users to download. The service is subscription based and offers a 7-day trial before starting at $20/month to play 100+ PS3 games. PlayStation now finally brings PS3 games to the PS4, which doesn’t support backward compatibility directly. Owners of the PS4 can download the app and start streaming games right now; it’s an all-you-can-eat subscription, meaning you can play as many games as you want without limitation.

• Google Domains Public Beta Launches in the US: After announcing its domain registration service last summer, today Google Domains has lifted the invitation-only access and is open to anyone in the US. Google Domains comes with a dashboard to help users maintain their website, along with Blogger integration to help sync company blog posts. The service will offer templates and a site builder price comparison tool, which includes partners like Shopify, Squarespace, Wix and Weebly. For other third-party site developers (such as WordPress), you’ll have to manually set the resource codes. With Google Domains, you’ll be able to buy and sell domains through the service, as well as create up to 100 email addresses under one domain. The service also offers to keep your registration private for no extra cost, and runs on Google’s DNS server to help your site load swiftly. Google says it is adding new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) regularly. Currently, the available options include .coffee, .academy, .company, .us and .ninja. You can find the full list of domain names here. International support for Google Domains is not currently available – to be notified, sign up for an alert from Google.

• Facebook Will Now Show AMBER Alerts in Users' News Feeds: In an effort to help locate missing children in the US, Facebook will send out AMBER Alerts on its Web and mobile apps to users in targeted areas. The alerts, issued by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and local or state police, include photos and details about the missing children and will show up by default on the News Feed — the first screen shown to users when they log in to Facebook. AMBER Alerts previously came through Facebook pages set up for individual states, and users had to opt in to receive notifications.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• David vs Goliath: Boomerang Commerce Takes on Amazon in Pricing Battle: In a war, the real winners are almost always the arms dealers. In e-commerce, a small, three-year-old startup is emerging as a sought after `arms dealer'. Boomerang Commerce, founded by former executives of eBay and Amazon, is helping retailers stand up to e-commerce giant Amazon as it can enable them to manage prices dynamically . “We are beating Amazon at its own game on pricing,“ said Boomerang CEO Guru Hariharan, 35, who worked for over half a decade with the online retail giant, where he got a front-seat view of the revolution afoot in the industry. “It was very clear that there was a large analytical divide building up between Amazon and others.“ Sunnyvale, California-based Boomerang, which has a development team in Bengaluru, offers a platform that helps retailers match their competi tor's discounts without hurting its profit. It has found takers in five of the top 10 US retailers, including Staples, Sears and Groupon Goods. “Boomerang's cutting edge platform is a win-win solution, helping us set competitive prices, while realising strong bottom line growth by testing multiple pricing strategies,“ Anthony Chvala, executive vice president at the SWI Group: Swiss Watch Interna tional, a Boomerang client, said by e-mail.

• Wishberry Raises Rs 4 Cr from 44 Investors: A bandwagon of 44 investors, including the likes of musician Shankar Mahadevan, Google India's MD Rajan Anandan and MakeMyTrip's Deep Kalra have pumped in 4 crore in crowd-funding site Wishberry, marking a coming of age of an alternate form of funding in India. Other investors include film director Vikramaditya Motwane, who had directed movies such as Udaan, Dev.D and Lootera. “Wishberry is very crucial for creative projects as they need alternate funding routes. So, we looked for investors from diverse background,“ said CEO Anshulika Dubey, who plans to use the funds to expand her technology and marketing team. “We also want to invest in analytics on the psychology of giving in India. What emotional connect should be established to increase it,“ Dubey added. Founded in 2012 by ex-McKinsey analysts Priyanka Agarwal and Anshulika Dubey, the platform has raised ₹ 4 crore for 200 projects, which are mostly in the film and music category. Going forward, the team wants to showcase regional art, films and bands, which get eclipsed by the more prominent English and Hindi platforms.

• Phone Retailers Try New Nos. in Online Fightback: India's largest cellphone retailer, The MobileStore, has revamped its e-commerce strategy, promising four-hour delivery in 90 cities and towns in what could be the first sign of offline retail fighting back e-commerce. The retailer will offer phones on its website at ₹200-500 more than the lowest price across e` commerce sites on that day. It hopes customers will pay the extra for doorstep services such as payment by cash or card after delivery buyback of old handset, data transfer and installation of accessories ­ all bundled in the offer. Other large brick-and-mortar cellphone chains like Sangeetha Mobiles and UniverCell too are planning to reboot their e-commerce venture and scale it up with faster delivery with their stores acting as warehouses. These chains plan to offer competitive online pricing, which will be lower than their store prices but may not be the lowest compared with ecommerce portals since they would comply with manufacturer's pricing policy , which they claim their e-commerce rivals don't. The MobileStore has also tied up with price comparison websites such as mysmartprice.com and zopper.com to attract e-commerce buyer traffic and will offer online the entire suit of services it offers in its 700-odd stores.

• SpiceJet to get extension for AAI dues till Jan- end: In a reprieve for troubled lowcost carrier SpiceJet, the government has decided to extend the credit period for its dues to state- run Airports Authority of India ( AAI) till the end of January, after the airline gives a revival plan with details of fresh investment on Thursday, say senior civil aviation ministry officials. The carrier is also expected to give an investment plan to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), with new investors, led by founder- promoter Ajay Singh, seeking a waiver from an open offer. Industry sources said Ajay Singh, along with private equity investor JP Morgan, was expected to acquire stake of about a 25 per cent in SpiceJet and pump in about ₹ 600 crore to revive the airline. At Wednesday’s closing share price of ₹ 18.10 on BSE, 25 per cent stake is worth ₹ 242 crore.

• Network 18 Appoints AP Parigi as Group CEO: Network 18 Media & Investments has appointed AP Parigi as its group chief executive, as the company with investment across television, print, Internet, film, mobile content and related businesses aims to strengthen its leadership team. Parigi, who has experience spanning sectors including infrastructure, telecommunications, media and entertainment, will start his tenure on January 29, the company said in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange. He replaces B Saikumar, who exited Network 18 Media & Investments some time ago.

• Marico Names Ashish Joshi as New COO for S-East Asia: Consumer goods firm Marico has hired Ashish Joshi, a senior executive at Colgate Palmolive, as chief operating officer (COO) for its Southeast Asia business. Confirming the appointment, Saugata Gupta, MD and CEO of the maker of Parachute hair oil, said: “We want to drive expansion in the Southeast Asia region.“ Joshi will oversee Marico's personal care business across Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar and Cambodia. He joins the company from Colgate Palmolive Thailand where he was leading the customer development function. An alumnus of IIM Lucknow, Joshi has been with the oral care major for the last 12 years before which he was with Hindustan Unilever for six years. Until now, PQ Cong, co-founder of Vietnamese personal care firm International Consumer Products that Marico has acquired, was leading the firm's operations in Southeast Asia.

• Sterlite to Shut Broadband Services from Feb 12: Sterlite Networks, a Vedanta Group company, will from February 12 pull the plug on some 1.5 lakh customers of its fibre-tothe-home (FTTH) high-speed broadband service spread across six cities for reasons unclear at this point. Sterlite Networks, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sterlite Technologies Ltd, retails broadband services in six cities under the FiON brand banner. According to documents seen by ET, the company has started informing FiON broadband customers about the stoppage of services from next month. “We regret to inform you that we have decided to discontinue our FiON FTTH broadband services to all subscribers w.e.f. February 12, 2015, for reasons beyond our control,” said the company’s customer care service department in a mail. The company assured subscribers that it would “refund credit balances in customer accounts as on February 12, 2015, within 30 days from the date of the receipt of the FiON broadband service withdrawal notice”.

• Uber may apply for radio cab licence in Delhi: In a bid to get back on Delhi’s roads, Uber is seeking a licence to operate under the revised Radio Taxi Act of 2006. The app-based rideshare service was banned in the city following the rape of a passenger in December. Uber insists it is a technology company and not a cab operator. Neeraj Singhal, head of expansion (India & the subcontinent) at Uber Technologies, told TOI, “We are evaluating options in Delhi where we have suspended operations. One of these is applying for a licence under the amended radio taxi scheme.” 

• Coca- Cola to lay off some workers in India: Beverages major Coca- Cola will dismiss some staffers in India as part of a global cost cutting exercise. The Atlanta- based company is in the process of laying off about 1,800 people worldwide. There are about 250 employees at Coca- Cola India. “ As part of The CocaCola Company’s recently announced multi- year productivity initiatives, we are redesigning our operating model to streamline and simplify our structure and accelerate the growth of our global business. As we have acknowledged previously, this redesign work will result in impacts to jobs across our global operations, including in India. Since we are still working on the redesign, we do not fully know the impact of this process yet. We have however committed that we will ensure fair, equitable and compassionate treatment of our people throughout this process,” said a Coca- Cola India spokesperson.

International:

• Neiman Marcus Expands Digital Experience: In a small space inside Neiman Marcus Direct in Dallas, the luxury chain manages a big mission — evaluating, designing and testing new technologies and applications, the kind that have been inundating the retail scene. “I can run from 10 to 15 different projects in it today,” said Scott Emmons, enterprise architect for the Neiman Marcus Innovation Lab, also known as the iLab. Two-and-a-half years ago, Emmons built the iLab, which was launched in a conference room, moved to its current 450-square-foot space, and is now expected to be relocated to a larger work area and adjourning showroom for presentations to Neiman’s executives. The iLab at the Neiman Marcus Group suggests the company’s deepening dive into emerging technologies, many bridging the online and brick-and-mortar channels. “Memory” mirrors are popping up in a handful of Neiman’s fitting rooms, beacon technology has been turned on in a few doors and recently, custom-designed “interactive” tables have been placed in a few of Neiman’s posh shoe salons — all technologies that began as discrete test projects inside the iLab and advanced to pilot projects on the selling floors.

• Blogger Traci French Founds Mavenhaus Collective: Traci French is going from pinning to selling. The popular Bliss blogger, who has 4 million followers on Pinterest, this week launched The Mavenhaus Collective with her sister, Tara Schlosser, an alumnus of Target’s public relations department. The number of designers Mavenhaus features will vary each month. In some ways, Mavenhaus is an extension of French’s Web site, Bliss, a stream of consciousness exploration of things she loves, except there’s a shopping component. On Mavenhaus, items are presented to the public and crowdsourced. If enough people commit to an item, it will go into production, eliminating waste by creating goods only for those who want them. If there’s not enough demand for an item, the sale will be canceled. Schlosser said items have different minimums, ranging from one piece to 50, depending on the product. “From the beginning, we focused on putting all of our energy into producing in smaller batches,” she said.

• Kering Appoints Sergio Rossi CEO: Kering has appointed Giovanni Giunchedi as chief executive officer of shoemaker Sergio Rossi, a spokeswoman for the group said on Wednesday, confirming a report in Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. Giunchedi has been deputy general manager at Sergio Rossi over the past five months, according to market sources. Previously, Giunchedi was sustainability director at Bottega Veneta, having held that post since 2012. He succeeds Christophe Mélard, who left his post as president and ceo of Sergio Rossi in September. Kering, parent of Sergio Rossi, Saint Laurent and other brands, has seen a flurry of management changes in recent months, headlined by Marco Bizzarri becoming ceo of the Gucci brand.

• China Allows Full Foreign Ownership of E-commerce Firms in Shanghai FTZ: China has allowed foreign investors to fully own e-commerce companies in Shanghai's free trade zone as part of a pilot scheme, the official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday, citing the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Foreign investors previously required a Chinese joint-venture partner to operate an e-commerce firm in the highly competitive market. The pilot scheme could provide an easier route for overseas companies to enter the ring and fight for a slice of one of the world's biggest e-commerce markets. Telecommunications authorities in Shanghai will regulate the scheme and the foreign investors, according to a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) statement reported by Xinhua. Since the launch of the free trade zone (FTZ) in September 2013, policy makers have trumpeted reforms and relaxed regulations to boost China's e-commerce industry, dominated by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.

• Alibaba Buys Control of AdChina: Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba said Wednesday it has bought a majority stake in online marketing company AdChina to develop its online and mobile marketing capabilities. Alibaba is not disclosing the size of the stake or price of the transaction. Alibaba said AdChina will work closely with Alimama, Alibaba Group’s online marketing technology platform and Aliyun, Alibaba Group’s cloud computing unit. Together, they will develop "an end-to-end data-driven digital marketing platform that provides comprehensive online marketing services and data marketing products to businesses, online media clients and third-party service providers," Alibaba said. "As China’s leading digital advertising technology platform, we hope by combining strengths with Alibaba Group, our partners and customers will find it more convenient to use data-driven digital marketing technology,” said Alan Yan, founder and chief executive officer of AdChina.

Tech:

• Karnataka to Use Aadhaar to Log into Mobile One: The Karnataka government is planning to change the current authentication process on its Mobile One platform by providing an option to login with just the Aadhaar number. This step is expected to eliminate the need for the citizens to enter their number and a one-time password. The current login process has been cumbersome for many as it is time consuming and often fails, acknowledges Ratan U Kelkar, chief executive of e-governance Karnataka. “We wanted the platform to be secure as innumerable transactions take place on this daily ,“ he said. The Aadhaar move is expected to maintain the security of the platform while helping to bring more citizens on board. The first-of-its-kind mobile application, M-One, which provides a single window for about 4,000 services, was launched by the Karnataka government in December.Since launch, close to one lakh downloads of the application have taken place on Android and iOS platforms, state officials said.

• Samsung brings Tizen-run Z1: Battling stiff competition from lowerpriced smartphones running on Google’s budget Android One platform, Korean mobile giant Samsung got in an allnew smartphone, Z1, powered by its proprietary Tizen operating system. The new device has been priced at Rs 5,700 and Samsung will look to use the phone to counter rising competition from Android-run low-priced devices from homegrown companies like Micromax, Karbonn and Lava, apart from other players like China’s Xiaomi. Tizen, which has so far been deployed in Samsung’s smartwatches and cameras, is yet another attempt by the Korean phone major to push an in-house platform on its devices after the failure of the Bada OS, which was launched in 2009. Samsung said that Z1 (not to be confused with Sony flagship device) will help it counter rising competition not only from low-cost Android devices but also get a higher share of feature phone buyers, who will find it as a viable cost-effective option.

• Patent war: Apple, Ericsson sue each other: Apple Inc and Ericsson AB are suing each other in US courts after failing to reach an agreement over the pricing of wirelesstechnology patents used by the maker of the iPhone and iPad. Apple, saying that Ericsson is seeking excessive royalty rates, on Tuesday asked a federal court in California to rule that Ericsson’s patents aren’t essential to long term evolution, or LTE, standards. Stockholm-based Ericsson said today it filed a complaint in a district court in Texas, asking for a verdict on whether its fees are fair. While Apple’s iPhone and iPad have won over users in recent years, Ericsson helped pioneer the mobile-device market with its handsets in the 1990s. The company sold its mobile-phone business to Sony Corp. in February 2012, five years after Apple introduced the iPhone.

• Lenovo rolls out its budget tablet in India via Snapdeal: Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo has launched its latest affordable tablet TAB 2 A7-10 exclusively on Indian e-tailer Snapdeal. The PC maker claims that the ultra-portable tablet, which comes with a sub-Rs 5,000 price tag, is equipped with multi-media features and an all-day battery life. Those who are planning to buy their first tablet or a secondary computing device may bring this device home as it won't fall heavy on pockets. Looking at the features of this TAB 2 A7-10, the ergonomically-designed device is only 9.3 mm thin and weighing only 269 grams. It runs on Android 4.4 KitKat and a 1.3 GHz Quad Core processor. The 7-inch display allows users to comfortably view photos, videos and web content from any angle. Lenovo has coupled the screen with Dolby audio with an aim to make it versatile for multi-media users. The tablet is also equipped with built-in Lenovo DOit Apps, which Lenovo claims that it allows easy transfer of files, secures & speeds up the device, and syncs contacts.

• BlackBerry denies Samsung buyout rumors: After rumors started spreading earlier today that Blackberry was in the midst of talks to be acquired by Samsung – causing its stocks to rise suddenly by 29 percent – the company has offered an official comment: it “has not engaged with Samsung with respect to any possible offer to purchase BlackBerry.” Blackberry then goes on to say its policy is not to comment on rumors – how nice of them to make an exception – and will talk no further about the matter.

• Google’s Project Ara pilot will be launched in Puerto Rico later this year: We finally know who will be the first to get Google’s modular Project Ara phone: the device will launch in a pilot program in Puerto Rico later this year. At its developer conference today, the company notes it chose Puerto Rico because of its high level of mobile engagement. 77 percent of its users access the internet primarily through mobile devices, and the country features both American and Latin American carriers. It also makes an optimal testing field because user’s devices vary broadly from entry-level to premium – a good trial for Ara’s buy-what-you-need approach to smartphones. As for the device itself, Google has updated the hardware slightly in its Spiral 2 prototype. The main change is that the magnets holding the pieces together are now located in the frame rather than the phone itself – this should allow modules to make more adequate use of their real estate. Additionally, Spiral 2 introduced an RF bus, which allows an antenna in one module to interact with radios in different modules. Google intends to have moved onto a ‘Spiral 3′ phase, which will bring the phone closer to parity with standard smartphone power and battery life, before the market pilot.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• SpiceJet Flies Back to Ex-Owner Ajay Singh: Budget carrier SpiceJet announced its third change of ownership in a decade, with control circling back to original co-promoter Ajay Singh, who's looking to pull off a rescue act to help the carrier avoid the fate that befell the now-grounded Kingfisher Airlines. This may involve changes in the top management and the phasing out of Bombardier aircraft, which would lead to the carrier having only Boeing 737s, executives said. SpiceJet's board decided “to transfer the ownership, management and control“ to Singh as proposed by principal shareholder and promoter Kalanithi Maran and KAL Airways on Thursday , the airline said in a BSE filing. The proposal will be submitted for the approval of regulators as well as the ministry of civil aviation, the airline said in the filing without elaborating. Former co-promoter Ajay Singh is likely to rope in an unidentified domestic investor and JPMorgan Chase as backers. New promoters will infuse `. 1,500 crore in three installments of ₹500 crore each, the first starting this month and the last in March, said an official in the aviation ministry.

• Driven by Demand, Myntra Plans to Sell In-house Brands on Other Sites: Myntra, the country's largest online fashion retailer, may offer its 10 privately owned brands of garments on other sites to take advantage of demand after sales of clothes and accessories on e-commerce portals grew faster than other categories of goods in the past year. The in-house brands yield higher operating margins and making them more widely available may increase sales and help the sevenyear-old Bengaluru-based company turn profitable. “We are looking at how to sell these brands at other e-commerce sites,“ said one person familiar with the matter who did not want to be identified because the company is in talks with other e-tailers. “It will work just like we sell our goods on Flipkart...like a client...If everything goes as planned, we could see our brands being sold (on other portals) from April.“ Another model that Myntra is considering is setting up standalone stores at high-end malls where buyers can try out dresses before shopping for them online. 

• Fashion-savvy Snapdeal Eyes $2b Sales in '15-16: Ecommerce major Snapdeal is tying up with leading fashion brands, designers and some large format retailers such as Shoppers Stop, and has set a target to facilitate sales of fashion product worth $2 billion, or about ₹12,400 crore, next fiscal.` Already , about 60% of its overall orders, at the unit level, already come from the fashion and lifestyle categories, Amit Maheshwari, vice president for fashion at Snapdeal, said. “The overall contribution (of fashion and lifestyle categories) to the top-line is currently at about 35%, but given the responses we have been seeing from consumers, we are quite confident this will only increase,“ he said. The Delhi-based company , flush with investor money , after it raised a massive $627 million in a new round of funding, led by Japanese investor giant SoftBank in October last year, is making an all-out effort to increase the size and range of its offerings, tying up with big brands as well as niche sellers. “We have tied up with Fashion Design Council of India to launch our Designer Studio that will bring premium designer wear to consumers. Separately, we are also launching brand stores in January , and are looking at more celebrity endorsements,“ Maheshwari said.

• Audi Retains No. 1 Spot in Luxury Car Pecking Order: No changes in the pecking order at India's luxurycar space, which expanded faster than the broader auto market in the past year. Sales of luxury cars and sportutility vehicles made by companies such as Audi, MercedesBenz, BMW and Volvo are estimated to have grown about 9% in 2014, compared with a less than 1% expansion in the overall auto market. Audi led the pack, followed by MercedesBenz and BMW. While the market grew, BMW posted a fall in sales for the second successive year in the country. While it was third on the list in India, BMW leads its German rivals globally. BMW India sold 6,812 cars and SUVs in the past year, a drop of 7% from 2013. Audi, which wrested the crown in the Indian market from BMW in 2013, and a supercharged MercedesBenz posted handsome growth in sales. In 2013, BMW's sales had dropped as much as 22% in India. The BMW Group currently sells three brands in India. Two brands, BMW and MINI, are sold directly by the Indian subsidiary. The third, Rolls-Royce, is sold separately. Automobile analysts blame BMW India's inability to shift gears at the right time and its product portfolio for the dismal performance. BMW launched several new cars in India in the past year, like the new X3 SUV , 3 Series Gran Tu rismo, M6 Gran Coupe, X5, Ac tiveHybrid 7 Series and the new MINI 3-door and 5-door. But ac cording to experts, rivals have come up with more competi tively priced products and bet ter discounts to attract buyers as the overall automobile mar ket remained sluggish.

• Xiaomi Targets to Get B'luru R&D Centre up and Running by May: Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is set to sign the lease for its R&D centre in Bengaluru, which is expected to be launched later this year, at a time when the government is pushing for more foreign investments in India. “We have taken a 20,000 sq ft building on lease for the R&D centre in Cessna Business Park, Bengaluru,“ Manu Jain, head of India operations, told ET at the launch of the 5.7inch Mi Note priced at ¥2,299 `23,000) in Beijing on Thurs(.day. “We plan to have it operational by Q2 (second quarter) 2015. So, by April or May, the development center should be up and running.“ Xiaomi, popularly called the `Apple of China,' had talked about setting up a research & development centre in India back in August, a month after it started selling devices in India. “The R&D centre will also house a Xiaomi call centre and will be used to develop the MiUI phone interface for India and other countries,“ said Hugo Barra, head of international operations. It will also test products relevant for the Indian market.

• Datsun Launches Compact MPV Starting at Rs 3.79 lakh: Having got off to a modest start with its Go hatchback, Datsun has launched a compact MPV at an aggressive price of Rs3.79 lakh to Rs 4.61 lakh, seeking to catch the eye of those looking to buy a bigger car for the first time.Datsun is the entry level car brand of Nissan Motor India. The company has sold about 12,000 Go hatchbacks in the last 10 months, which is almost half the monthly number of the Alto that No. 1 Maruti Suzuki sells. The new Go+ is aimed at offering yet another alter native to price-conscious Indian buyers, thereby creating a new segment in the Indian passenger vehicle market. “Indian people are very demanding, they always want more without an increase in price and Go+ is just that,“ Guillaume Sicard, president, Nissan India Operations, told ET. “It is an innovative product, which fulfils the Indian car buyer's need of maximum comfort, space, fuel efficiency and active safety.“

• Startups can expect more money, higher valuations and major exits in 2015: Venture capital firms that maade 2014 the biggest year for technology investing in India expect to pay more for good companies this year, as competition separates the winners from laggards. Some of the world's most sophisticated investors put money into Indian startups last year, with most of the capital going to consumer internet startups. Those who came in include hedge funds like Tybourne Capital and FalconEdge to Japan's SoftBank which invested nearly $1 billion making the Asian firm one of the largest investors in Indian startups. "2014 will be looked at as an inflection point, the year the world discovered the true potential of the Indian startup," said Mohit Bhatnagar of Sequoia Capital which closed over 40 deals in the yeVenture capitalar including in mobile gaming firm Octro, ride sharing Zoomcar and customer feedback platform Akosha.

International:

• Google and Apple in $415m 'non-poaching' settlement offer: Four of the world's biggest tech giants - Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe - have agreed to a new settlement of $415m (£273.5m) in an attempt to resolve a lawsuit. The US lawsuit alleged the firms agreed not to poach staff from each other. It claimed the alleged agreement prevented workers from getting better job offers elsewhere. The 2011 US case had claimed $3bn in damages on behalf of more than 64,000 workers at the four firms. The latest attempt to settle the case for $415m, which was filed in court on Thursday, comes after a US judge rejected a $324.5m settlement offer last year.

• Target: 17,600 jobs at risk as retailer leaves Canada: The US discount store Target is to shut all of its 133 stores in Canada two years after launching there. On current trading performance, Target Canada, which employs 17,600 people, would not be profitable before 2021, its US parent said in a statement. Target Canada, which has filed for bankruptcy protection, faced tough competition from Walmart and Costco, which opened in the country years ago. Target said the closure was in the "best interest of the business". Chairman and chief executive Brian Cornell said in a statement: "After a thorough review of our Canadian performance and careful consideration of the implications of all options, we were unable to find a realistic scenario that would get Target Canada to profitability until at least 2021," He said the focus now would be on "driving growth" in the US, where it has 1,801 stores.

• Bloomingdale's Promotes Michelle Israel to Oversee Outlets: Bloomingdale's has promoted Michelle Israel to senior vice president of outlets, succeeding Arnie Orlick, who will retire Jan. 31. Orlick was instrumental in the launch and development of the Bloomingdale’s outlet division in 2010. Macy’s, which like Bloomingdale’s is a division of Macy’s Inc., revealed last week it is considering opening outlets for the first time. Bloomingdale’s is continuing to open outlets. Israel, vice president and divisional merchandise manager for housewares, tabletop, food and trim, will report to Francine Klein, vice chair for outlets, omnichannel technology, center core, fine jewelry and cosmetics.

• Tom Ford Planning More Stores: Tom Ford’s business is in growth mode, and the designer plans to have a total of 104 stores, including 46 freestanding locations and 58 shops-in-shop, by the end of the year, in addition to a roster of wholesale accounts. The designer will open stores in Dubai and Jeddah in March, Houston in September, and Miami and Atlanta later this year. Following his fall men’s wear presentation in London earlier this week, Ford said the company planned to close some stores in China, but would be opening others in better locations. “We are currently re-negotiating the contracts. A few of the stores were not as great as they should be. When we first entered Asia, we didn’t have the power that we do now,” said the designer. Asked whether he was looking to raise additional money or to bring new investors into the privately funded business, Ford said, “No, we’re fine.”

• Italy's OVS Files for IPO: Italian mass-market retailer OVS SpA said Thursday that it had filed paperwork to be listed on the Milan Stock Exchange to regulatory body Consob. The initial public offering of OVS was expected to take place by the end of 2014, but in November, citing market volatility, the group postponed the listing to the first half of 2015. This would be the first fashion IPO in Italy since Moncler’s listing in December 2013. In October, Italian beauty firm Intercos shelved plans to go public citing deteriorated market conditions. OVS, which is controlled by BC Partners, has been positioning itself as a trendier fast-fashion destination, focusing on a more stylish and higher-quality lineup. The firm has been cutting costs, bringing back to Italy a part of its manufacturing and closely controlling its production abroad.

• Parigi Files Suit Against Puma: Parigi Group Ltd. filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Puma North America Inc., United Legwear Co., United Legwear & Apparel Co., and Puma Kids Apparel North America in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. According to the suit, Parigi seeks damages for Puma’s breach of its contractual obligations, fraudulent conduct and misrepresentation regarding its intentions to renew its children’s license agreement, and the defendants’ misappropriation of Parigi’s trade secrets and proprietary information, among other things. The suit alleges that the dispute arose from “a calculated scheme” by Puma to misappropriate Parigi’s trade secrets and proprietary business information “to further their own nefarious agenda of covertly forming a secret joint venture for the purpose of unfairly competing, and tortiously interfering, with Parigi and its business relationships.”

Tech:

• Google Glass sales halted but firm says kit is not dead: Google is ending sales of its Google Glass eyewear. The company insists it is still committed to launching the smart glasses as a consumer product, but will stop producing Glass in its present form. Instead it will focus on "future versions of Glass" with work carried out by a different division to before. The Explorer programme, which gave software developers the chance to buy Glass for $1,500 (£990) will close. The programme was launched in the United States in 2013. It was then opened up to anyone and was launched in the UK last summer. It had been expected that it would be followed reasonably quickly by a full consumer launch. From next week, the search firm will stop taking orders for the product but it says it will continue to support companies that are using Glass.

• BB Hopes to Challenge Samsung with Classic: Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry launched the Classic in India, priced at Rs 31,990, featuring the original Qwerty keyboard, track pad and touch screen in a back-to-roots attempt to return as a contender in a space dominated by Samsung. Classic, the second phone from BlackBerry after the differently designed Passport introduced in late 2014, is aimed at corporate and business users. Like the Passport, which sold out quickly at launch on Amazon, the BlackBerry Classic will be offered on Snapdeal. The first 1,000 buyers who already own BlackBerry Bold will get ₹4,500 off when they upgrade to the Classic.New buyers will get benefits from Yatra.com of up to Rs 10,000. “BlackBerry will push the Classic more for the die-hard enterprise users,“ said Tarun Pathak, senior analyst at Counterpoint Technologies. “Penetration will be higher than the consumer segment. Classic won't be able to do much for a turnaround but will do a lot for BB loyalists.“

• yuMobile Customers Join Airtel: Sunil Mittalfounded Bharti Airtel has integrated yuMobile customers into its mobile network, consolidating its position as the second largest mobile carrier in Kenya with a combined customer base of over 8 million and a 26.6 % customer market share. The process, which started last August, has seen the 2.55 million yuMobile customers get integrated into the Airtel network. Joining “the Airtel network brings a whole new world of exciting customer experience and unmatched value for money,“ Bharti Airtel said in a media statement Thursday.

• Vodafone Unveils iPhone Plans: Apple has stepped up its India play, tying up with Vodafone to offer its range of devices, including the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, on monthly installments over two years, while the country's No. 2 telco looks to tie in subscribers for premium data services. Vodafone has introduced tariff plans based on installments starting at Rs 2,099 a month, for which a consumer can buy Apple's iPhone 4s along with bundled talk time, SMSes and 3G data. An iPhone 5c can be bought for Rs 2,499 a month and the iPhone 5s at Rs 2,999 per month, while those wanting to buy the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus will have to pay Rs 3,599 a month for two years. “Our all-inclusive and fully-loaded data plans will allow customers to have a hassle-free experience with no upfront costs and additional savings on monthly plans,“ Marten Pieters, MD & CEO of Vodafone India, said in a statement Thursday. “We see data as a strong growth driver in the years to come and believe these kind of innovative offers add to our efforts in the growth of this segment.“

• Google Search Now Links You to Brands' Social Profiles: Google is always trying to make information quicker to access on its search engine. Now, when you look up a brand, you’ll see links to its social profiles provided right through its information card. Google’s been adding social profiles to its Knowledge Graph cards for celebrities and other famous persons since November, but it’s nice to see brands and companies added to the mix. Interestingly, Google doesn’t list Google+ first, although it will directly showcase recent posts on its own social network. You should see the links appear for major brands on both desktop and mobile. It’s a welcome addition; it could save you some time and at least makes use of otherwise empty whitespace.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India

• A Narrow Fare Gap With Peers May Help Vistara Sales Take off: India’s latest airline Vistara may have to reduce its price gap with rivals, market itself more aggressively and scale up fast before it can expect healthy sales on its flights, said travel company executives and experts. “From what we have seen so far, Vistara’s sales could have been much better, given the formidable product,” said Manoj Samuel, ED at Riya Travels, one of India’s biggest brick-and-mortar travel agents. Vistara — a joint venture airline between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines — currently has 10 operations in the country, from Delhi to Ahmedabad and Mumbai counted with return legs. It operates 148-seater planes which make for a daily total inventory of 1,480 seats on sale. Data collated from the top five on line and brick-and-mortar travel agents showed their daily sales do not exceed 300 seats. A chunk of Vistara’s sales comes from its own website whose data ET didn’t have access to. “Customers, especially corporate travellers, aren’t yet very excited with Vistara,” said Manoj Chacko, CEO at Kuoni Business Travel, while acknowledging that “the Singapore Airlines and Tata group pedigree gives it a high degree of credibility among corporate customers”.

• Fashion Designers Now Take the Online Ramp: Fashion designer Suneet Varma is launching a new ready-to-wear line nine years after he had to shut down a store he opened in Delhi for the same purpose, because authorities brought down the shopping complex that housed it as it was illegally constructed. This time he doesn't have to fear bulldozers because his new readyto-wear, or RTW, line is being launched online. And the label will be affordable, he said. Varma is not an exception. A large number of top fashion designers in the country , including Raghavendra Rathore, Rohit Bal, JJ Valaya, Abu Jani & Sandeep Khosla, Vikram Phadnis, Manish Arora, Ritu Kumar and Gaurav Gupta, are looking to make the most of the country's online shopping boom by pushing affordable RTW lines to buyers all over the country . Most of them are creating new lines to be sold in partnership with portals like Amazon, Snapdeal, Jabong and Myntra-Flipkart. These RTW lines are way more affordable compared to their core offerings being bought by the affluent class.

• IRCTC Invites Obama & Family for a Maharajas' Treat: US President Barack Obama is likely to get a taste of Indian Railway hospitality during his visit to the country. The Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation has formally invited the US President to travel on the ultra-luxury Maharajas' Express along with his family. Though the invite, sent through the Ministry of External Affairs, doesn't mention a destination, the railways hope Obama will accept and travel to Agra on the $3,000-a-night Presidential Suite of the train. IRCTC Chairman and MD AK Manocha told ET that the invitation had been sent to Obama through the proper channels after taking clearance from the Prime Minister's Office. Obama's visit to Agra to see the Taj Mahal is almost certain, with officials of the US secret service and Indian security personnel busy sanitising the Uttar Pradesh city and also the Expressway that links it to Noida, near Delhi. “We sent the invite over a week ago. Though we haven't heard from the US authorities, we still have hopes. The invite has not been rejected. He is expected to travel to Agra on January 27 and the ideal thing would be to travel royalty style on the Maharajas' Express. If there is a time con straint, he is welcome to take a short ride around Delhi or even come aboard for a meal,“ said Manocha.

• ShopClues Gets $100-M Funding: Mass market online retailer ShopClues has received funding of $100 million led by Tiger Global, after turning down offers from the likes of Alibaba, Flipkart and Snapdeal, all of whom have been aggressively courting the three-year-old company. The deal which closed in early January, values ShopClues at $350 million, and includes participation from existing investors Helion Venture Partners and Nexus Venture Partners. Apart from the recent funding, ShopClues has so far raised over $115 million. “We will be investing money in technology, marketing and everything else that will enable more sellers to come on our platform,” said Radhika Aggarwal, co-founder and chief marketing officer at ShopClues. “Our focus is to be the largest platform for unstructured, mass market, high-margin product categories.” ShopClues plans to close this fiscal with ₹2,000 crore in gross merchandise volume (GMV) and break even in mid 2016. ShopClues, which enables small and medium-size merchants to transact online, positions itself as a marketplace for the smaller cities buyers and sellers. Unlike the top three marketplaces — Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal — ShopClues sells lesser known or unbranded items online, while the other top three focus more on branded stuff.

• Alibaba co- founder Peng Lei set to join Paytm board: Peng Lei, co- founder of Jack Ma- led Chinese e- commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding, is going to join the board of mobile wallet operator Paytm, it is learnt. Alibaba and Alipay, which operates the Chinese e- tailer’s third- party online payment platform, are to invest $575 million for a cumulative 40 per cent equity in Paytm, a company owned by Noida- based One97 Communications. Peng would join Paytm’s board of directors as a member once the investment had been completed, asource said. To Business Standard’s queries on this, an Alibaba spokesperson said in an e- mailed response: “ As a matter of company policy, we do not comment on market rumours and speculation.” Paytm Chief Executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma declined to comment. Peng, also known as Lucy Peng, 43, joined Alibaba in 1999 as a member of the founding team. From January 2010 to February 2013, she was the chief executive of Alipay. In March 2013, she took over as CEO of Alibaba Small and Micro Financial Services Group. Since June 2014, Peng has been the chief people officer of Alibaba Group Holding.

• Department of Posts may set up separate entity for e-commerce by next year: The Department of Posts (DoP) may set up a separate entity for handling e-commerce services by next year to cash in on the burgeoning demand for delivery and logistics. According to sources, during a recent meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, DoP said it aims to conduct a financial feasibility study for setting up a separate entity for e-commerce by October this year and start the operations by next year. Sources said DoP may appoint an on-board consultant for development and operationalisation of business and marketing strategy for commerce market by July this year. Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had earlier said India Post with the world's largest postal network is best suited to offer delivery services to e-commerce firms. India Post has over 1.55 lakh post offices of which around 1.40 lakh are in the rural areas. On an average, a post office serves an area of 21.21 sq. km and a population of 7,175 people.

• Airtel Co Eyes Big Slice of Video Collaboration Biz: Airtel Business, the enterprise services arm of Bharti Airtel, is targeting a major slice of the ₹400-500 crore video collaboration market through its plan to offer a telepresence room or space for high-end videoconferencing mainly to banking and financial services, IT and IT-enabled services industry, and small and medium enterprises. “Being the first to offer something like this will allow us to get the dominant position in this segment of the industry. We see ourselves getting the first-mover advantage,” Manish Prakash, director of Airtel Business told ET. Airtel, India’s leading mobile phone operator, has partnered with networking equipment maker Cisco to provide this service in the country. The company sees video collaboration services as a faster growing segment than its traditional products, Prakash said.“There’s a huge market for such solutions. This offering becomes relevant with the speeds we are starting to get in broadband,” he said.

• Air India Announces a Slew of Measures to Cut Costs: |Loss-making Air India has announced a slew of cost-cutting measures, which include plans to cut reimbursables by 10% and abolition of posts from the nonoperational areas. The national carrier has also decided to discontinue loss-making routes, among other steps, to rein in the spending and return to break-even. The use of expensive hotels or five-star hotels for stay during the travel or holding events has been restricted unless it is unavoidable and the budget for such activities has been reduced by 10% as part of the measures, Air India sources said.

• Jet Ropes in Ex-AI Official to Head Its Operations: Jet Airways has roped in former Air India official K M Unni to head its operations. Unni, who retired from the national carrier in 2013 moved to the Naresh Goyalpromoted airline last month to handle its operations, and engineering and maintenance services, sources said. Prior to his retirement, Unni was the head of the airline's special business unit for MRO besides holding the charge of its ground handling subsidiary, Air India Air Transport Services Limited. He also held the charge of chief operating officer at Air India, though for a brief period, after the government removed the then expat COO Gustav Baldauf in March 2011 from the post.

• Asian Paints to Set up Rs 1,700-Crore Plant at Vizag: Paving the way for setting up of a ₹1,700-crore manufacturing plant of Asian paints at Visakhapatnam, the Andhra Pradesh government on Sunday said it has cleared the “administrative hurdles“ for the project. Asian paints has agreed to establish the unit soon after the allotment of the land and obtaining due environmental and other clearances from the government. “The Andhra Pradesh government has cleared the administrative hurdles in the ₹1,700-crore manufacturing setting up of a .plant of paints giant Asian Paints at Visakhapatnam,“ a state government release said. AP chief secretary IYR Krishna Rao on Saturday held a review meeting with the Asian Paints' representatives and the industries department to clear bottlenecks in the project.

• Branded bhels, sattu get more shelf space: Even as consumers today are heavily influenced by modern sensibilities, the market for products rooted in tradition continues to grow strong.Retail shelves stocked with modern packaged food offerings like pasta and spreads also witness branded golgappas, aam pannas and bhels moving at an equally rapid pace. This is not restricted to food products alone. It extends to clothing and interiors as well. “Tradition and rootedness is also a vector of modernity and upgrade for the consumer, as she becomes more confident in making her choices. So we now see packaged aam panna and golgappa pani being stocked with bhel as well as pasta. And Fabindia is trendy fashion, too! We believe modern retail has to be a celebration platform that gives consumer the choice she wants to exercise. Just because you like niche products like Meswak toothpaste or palak soup, you don't have to be underserved with narrow availability compulsions of traditional trade,“ said Damodar Mall, CEO, value retail, Reliance Retail.

• Adobe India head Gupta to quit by March-end: Adobe India MD Naresh Gupta is leaving the multimedia software products company after 19 years to start a venture of his own. Adobe said that Gupta, who is also head of the company's global print and publishing business, will be leaving at the end of March. The company has not announced who will succeed Gupta in India. A company statement quoted Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen as saying: “Naresh Gupta has played a key role in shaping Adobe's technology and global business strategy and has built a world-class R&D operation in India.“ The R&D operation in India comprises more than 3,000 employees across two sites, Bengaluru and Noida, and contributes to engineering across all of Adobe's businesses. Gupta said, “Leaving Adobe has been the toughest decision of my life; the company is growing and is going through the strongest period I've seen in my career here. However, I am excited to pursue my passion for entrepreneurship in financial markets.“

International:

• Uber taxi firm promises 50,000 jobs under 'new' Europe deal: The chief executive of the online taxi-sharing firm Uber has said he wants to make 2015 a year of rapid expansion in Europe. Travis Kalanick told a conference in Munich that Uber could create 50,000 jobs as part of a "new partnership" with European cities. Fast-expanding Uber has drawn criticism across the world from regulators and established taxi operators. Mr Kalanick's comments were seen as a bid to build bridges with critics. Uber, which helps users summon taxi-like services on their smartphones, started four years ago and now operates in 250 cities worldwide. The San Francisco start-up is valued at $40bn (£25.5bn), based on the latest fundraising from investors. But critics have accused Uber of flouting competition rules and of not carrying out sufficient safety checks on drivers and their vehicles. Uber has been hit with court injunctions in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, and has faced protests from taxi firms in major cities, including London.

• Amazon: Luxembourg tax deal probably 'state aid' EC says: The European Commission has disclosed a preliminary finding that Amazon's tax arrangements in Luxembourg probably constitute "state aid". The EC's doubts about the arrangement were detailed in a document on Friday. The EC said that its "preliminary view is that the tax ruling... by Luxembourg in favour of Amazon constitutes state aid." However, Amazon said it "has received no special tax treatment from Luxembourg". "We are subject to the same tax laws as other companies operating here [in Luxembourg]," it said. The Luxembourg finance ministry said: "Luxembourg is confident that the state aid allegations in this case are without merit and will be able to convince the Commission of the legitimacy of the anticipatory decision in question and that no competitive advantage was granted," it said.

• JINAMMI Opens First US Store: The latest edition to the Beverly Center's luxury wing comes in the way of JINAMMI. The luxury handbag line out of Seoul officially opened its first store in the U.S. Thursday. Up ahead is an East Coast store, most likely in New York, by the end of the year, according to JINAMMI Creative Director and founder Ji-Nam Lee. "Beverly Hills is very popular in Asia," Lee said of the reason to open there, adding that other luxury tenants made the shopping center a good choice for JINAMMI. The company bills itself as a "modern Korean couture brand" with designs inspired by Korean architecture and art. The line, which uses materials such as Italian water snake and embossed lizard, ranges from $89 for leather bracelets to $3,290 for satchels made of caiman. The company has a flagship store in Seoul and is also sold in Lotte department stores and duty-free shops in Asia. Lee, who received her master's in fashion design at the Marangoni Institute of Milan in 2000, began laying down roots in the U.S. for her company last year when it opened a marketing office in Glendale, Calif. that has since shifted operations to the Beverly Center. An online shop also launched last year.

• Joseph Lombardi Named Kellwood CEO: In an unexpected move, Kellwood Co. replaced its chief executive officer Lynn Shanahan with Joseph Lombardi, the company’s chief financial officer. Shanahan plans to resume her position leading strategic branding firm C2 Group. She joined Kellwood in July 2013 as ceo of Kellwood Brands and was elevated to ceo of Kellwood in December of that year. Lombardi joined Kellwood, owned by Sun Capital Partners, in 2013 and prior to that was cfo of Barnes & Noble and held management posts at the Museum Co. and Toys ‘R’ Us Inc. He began his career at Ernst & Young, where he worked with brands such as Phillips-Van Heusen, Adidas and Pony. Neither Lombardi nor Shanahan were reachable for comment. Industry sources didn’t know why Sun Capital Partners made the abrupt switch and aren’t privy to the numbers, but as one source put it, “Sun is a very mercurial company.”

• December's Retail Price Decline Part of Long-Term Trend: Weakness in retail pricing power deepened in 2014 — a trend that is expected to continue in the coming months — as appreciation of the dollar, falling commodity prices, prolonged discounting and bargain-conscious consumers keep the pressure on. Consumers have generally responded well to the discounts and lower prices on apparel, but have also been held back somewhat from sluggish wage and income growth, economists said. Consumer apparel prices in December fell a seasonally adjusted 1.2 percent, marking the third straight monthly decline in the category, according to the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index released Friday. Women’s apparel prices declined 1.9 percent last month, while men’s apparel prices declined 1.2 percent. The monthly retail price declines were part of a longer term deflationary trend and pricing weakness that retailers have experienced over the past couple of years.

Tech:

• Ola Ropes in AuthBridge for Drivers' Verification: India's largest taxi aggregator, Olacabs, has hired background-verification firm AuthBridge to vet the drivers who use its platform and said it is investing more than $20 million (₹124 crore) this year in efforts related to passenger safety. Last month, after a 25-year-old woman passenger in Delhi accused the driver of a cab she hired through Uber of raping her, taxi-hailing apps such as Ola, Uber, TaxiForSure and Meru have taken a series of steps to ensure customer safety. These include double layer of GPS security tracking and panic buttons in cabs to thirdparty background verifications and building a collaborative database of drivers. “Specifically, for background screening after the mandatory police verification check and address-proof check, we have added another layer by getting on board a third-party provider, AuthBridge, to do a criminal record check,“ said Anand Subramaniam, director for marketing communications at Olacabs. “This will help us weed out any driver who even has a small question mark on credentials.“

• Toshiba launches Android powered LED TVs: Japanese electronics giant Toshiba has introduced a new range of smart LED TVs powered by Android that will allow viewers to access a wide range of apps, games and videos. The new range of Ultra HD 4K L9450 series and HD & Full HD L5400 series has features including personalised content, visual details, stunning graphics, built-in Wi-Fi, web browser to access any website, Toshiba said in a release. L9450 UHD 4K series is available in 50, 65 and 84 inches screen size priced between Rs 1.99 lakh to 10.49 lakh. While L5400 HD & Full HD series is 32, 40, 47 and 56 inches screen size priced between Rs 38,990 to Rs 1.29 lakh. Toshiba India - DS Division Country Head Sanjay Warke said: "The Android interface has opened a world of possibilities for consumers... We are trying to bring the same limitless experience by breaking boundaries on screen sizes. Our latest range offers the customers a choice to enjoy latest Android applications on a larger screen and in a higher image quality, than that of smartphones and tablets."

• Facebook open-sources its deep-learning AI tools: Facebook is sharing some of its technology. The company’s artificial intelligence research team today announced that it is open sourcing its deep-learning AI tools. The software will be available on the Torch library, which serves as an open-source environment for machine learning development. Torch is widely used for research in academia, as well as by companies like Google, Twitter and Intel. Facebook claims its deep-learning modules are significantly quicker than the default ones available through Torch, and allow the company to work on larger neural networks in less time. Notable improvements include a 23.5x speed-up over publicly available convolutional layer codes, and the ability to parallelize neural networks training over GPU cards.

• Designers Behind Medium and Readability Join Facebook: Teehan+Lax, a Toronto-based boutique design firm, has announced that it will be shutting down after 12 years to join Facebook’s design team in California. The firm’s three partners – Jon Lax, Geoff Teehan and David Gillis – are best known for their work behind blogging platform Medium and mobile and Web reader app Readability. “The challenges that we will have at Facebook are challenges that interest us. They are primarily about making things that over a billion people will use… all over the world,” the team posted on its homepage. “Ultimately, the things we would get to do at Facebook, the people we would get to work with, the problems we get to solve were too compelling to say no to.” We know what you’re thinking. You hate it when Facebook drastically changes its design layouts. It is unclear what Lax, Teehan and Gillis will do on Facebook’s design team, but given their past experiences, there’s nowhere to go but up from Facebook’s current UI. 

• Xiaomi Buys 3% Of Chinese Games And Software Giant Kingsoft For $68M: Xiaomi became the world’s third largest smartphone company based on sales last year, but it also invested in a number of companies in 2014. Its early deals have largely been in hardware, but today it announced[PDF] plans to put money into games and software by buying 2.98 percent of Kingsoft for HK$527 million (~$68 million). Kingsoft started out developing PC games, but today the company — which is listed in Hong Kong and valued at over $2 billion — produces security, entertainment and enterprise products too. It already has strong links to Xiaomi, whose CEO and co-founder Lei Jun is also founder and chairman of Kingsoft. The investment is notable because it is a sign of Xiaomi’s intention to increase its focus on software and services. Its deals to date have circled around hardware — including a $200 million investment in appliance maker Midea, and a funding round for wearables startup Misfit — but with the Kingsoft deal, Xiaomi may well be laying the ground for a dedicated games service, security features and other mobile services for its customers.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Flipkart, Jabong Bet on Instant Messaging to Acquire Customers, Facilitate Payments: If you're a regular online shopper, you may soon find yourself chatting with the folks at your preferred e-tailer on smartphone messaging services such as WhatsApp, WeChat and Line, discussing new products, complaints or even paying for a purchase. E-commerce companies have started using instant messengers to reach out to millions of mobile phone users in India to widen their customer base, and in some cases, facilitate payments. Flipkart and Jabong have tied up with Chinese instant messenger WeChat to launch official accounts. The two companies also partnered with Japanese messaging app Line, which has a feature that allows users to make payments using credit cards. “WhatsApp is a bit of a walled garden but we've started experimenting on other platforms like WeChat and Line,“ said Mausam Bhatt, senior director, mobile commerce & digital marketing, at Flipkart.

• Amazon India May Emerge as Fastest E-tailer to Touch $2-B Sales Mark: Amazon India is looking to sell goods worth $2 billion (over ₹12,000 crore) by the end of the current fiscal, thereby becoming the fastest e-tailer in the country to cross this mark and moving close to Snapdeal, which is believed to have flashed past this milestone a few weeks ago. If Amazon India is able to achieve this feat, it will have taken less than half the time taken by Delhi-based Snapdeal, which had to wait for more than four years to do so, while the country's largest e-tailer, Flipkart, took almost seven years. Flipkart is expected to close the year to March with sales or gross merchandise value (GMV) of $3 billion (over . 18,000 crore). Until the middle of January, Amazon India had sold goods worth $1.51 billion, clocking GMV of $25 per week, according to executives privy to the figures. “At this rate, Amazon India can look at $2 billion by the end of March,“ said an executive, requesting not to be named. Amazon India declined to comment on the matter. Although the company, which started operations in June 2013, does not share details of sales, it is understood to have crossed the $1 billion mark in September last year. Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, in his first visit to India after the company started its operations in the country, had told ET that India had surpassed his highest expectations and he had promised to keep the money tap open after first committing to invest $2 billion.

• Snapdeal eyes Rs 500 cr via a TV channel: Snapdeal, one of the country's largest e-tailers, is set to rake in Rs 500 crore in the first year from its TV-commerce channel.The channel called DEN Snapdeal TV shop is a result of a 50:50 JV (Macro Commerce Pvt Ltd) that the company formed with cable distribution company DEN Networks to sell products across home, lifestyle and electronics categories. “It had taken us around three years to reach Rs 500 crore through our online business. In comparison, our TV channel is set to touch a similar figure in just one year. Television-commerce can be the next vector of growth for e-commerce,“ said Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal. Bahl is optimistic that television will help Snapdeal reach customers, who have limited access to internet services, particularly in tier II and III cities. Cable operators will be acting as brand ambassadors of the channel. “A lot of people have questioned this move.But, in contrast to the situation in the US where growth of sales of TV sets has stagnated due to smart devices, sales of TVs are growing here and will continue to do so for some time. So, if you have to reach people such as, elders in the family , who are not used to shopping on smartphones, TV is a great option,“ said Bahl.

• IndiGo Gains Most Share in Dec Amid Turmoil at SpiceJet: Budget carrier IndiGo gained the most with the curtailment of operations by SpiceJet, with the airline gaining about 2.4% in its total passenger carriage during December, increasing its share to 36.1% from 33.5% in November. Data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) also shows that Air India and Jet Airways Group (Jet Airways and JetLite) increased their market share by 1.15% to 18.6% and 0.3% to 23.3%, respectively. The data shows that Indian airlines flew 15.29% more passengers during December compared with the same month in 2013. The airlines flew about 6.44 million passengers during the month.During the 2013 calendar year, the airline flew 67.38 million passengers, registering an increase of 9.7% over 2012. “The biggest benefit that the airlines have got due to the SpiceJet turmoil is not of market share but of increase in average fares, which has added to all airlines' bottom line,“ said an industry executive, who did not wish to be identified. The average fares during December were up by about 30%. December also became one of those rare months, when flights by all airlines flew with over 80% loads -the highest clocked by JetLite at 89.5% and the lowest clocked by Air Asia at 81.5%.

• Renault to Recall 646 Cars on Airbag Flaw: Renault plans to recall 646 cars in India to fix faulty airbags that the French carmaker said could potentially affect passengers' safety. The recall will cover Pulse hatchback and the diesel Scala sedan manufactured between September 2011 and July 2012, the Indian unit of the carmaker said in a notice to the government. Both models are principally manufactured by its global alli ance partner Nis san Motors and sold as Micra hatchback and Sunny sedan in India by the Japa nese company. Renault re-badges them as Pulse and Scala for the Indian market.The faulty airbags were supplied by Takata, Renault said. Renault India said it has initiated the recall step voluntarily.“Renault is conducting a voluntary check on certain potentially affected Renault vehicles (620 Pulse and 26 Scala -produced between September 2011 and July 2012) which may have a possibility of driver airbag problem,“ a company spokesman said in an emailed statement to ET.

• Air traffic grows 10% in 2014 on flash ticket sales: Give low fares and Indians will fly like never before. The constant flash sales by SpiceJet last year, which forced other carriers to follow suit, has led to a record 6.7 crore people flying within India in 2014. In December, 64.4 lakh flyers took off within the country , possibly the highest ever number of people flew in a month. But SpiceJet, which started the fare war, saw itself running out of cash by November, which led to aircraft leasors repossessing many of its Boeing 737 aircraft. Since November, the airline saw its market share fall. In December 2014, its market share was 10.4%, down from 20.4% in July . The low cost carrier is now headed for a change of ownership with co-founder Ajay Singh back in the cockpit.

• Air India begins ‘ large- scale’ ATF hedging: Air India is conducting large- scale hedging of jet fuel for the the first time, as the state- run carrier seeks to take advantage of lower crude oil prices, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said. Air India was hedging two million barrels of aviation turbine fuel annually at $ 75 per barrel, which should cover more than a fifth of its fuel requirements, the person said. The company did not expect oil prices to fall any further, the person said. Crude oil prices slumped almost 50 per cent last year as the US pumped oil at the fastest rate in more than three decades while Opec resisted calls to cut supply. That resulted in boosting economies of import- driven countries, while providing a breather to airlines, which typically operate on tight margins. Cheaper oil prices could help Air India save $ 324 million for the year ending March 31, 2016, and help it break even before its target of turning aprofit by 2019. Some airlines which had hedged jet fuel prices at higher prices have failed to take advantage of the recent slump, and may actually end up losing money from the sudden drop. 

• MRF in Talks to Buy Kesoram's Tyre Unit: Madras Rubber Factory (MRF), India's largest tyre manufacturer, is in negotiations with BK Birla flagship Kesoram Industries to acquire its main tyre unit, located in Uttarakhand, for a value that's higher than the market capitalisation of the entire diversified Birla conglomerate, said multiple sources involved in the exercise. Kesoram has two factories and sells tyres under the Birla Tyres brand. The deal, if completed, will be 69-yearold MRF's first acquisition and strengthen its manufacturing presence in the north Indian market. It will also help consolidate its presence in the commercial vehicles tyre segment where it is the second-largest player after Apollo. For Kesoram, selling its principal unit in Laksar, Uttarakhand, would deleverage its balance sheet significantly. Kesoram has been burdened by ballooning debt, which stood at Rs 4,425 crore at the end of the September 2014 quarter. The tyre business contributed almost half of its FY14 EBITDA. While the discussions are yet to reach a conclusion, sources said Birlas are expecting a minimum enterprise valuation of ₹2,200 crore for this facility alone.` To put it in perspective, that's at least 75% higher than the market capitalisation of ₹1,256.33 crore for the entire company . The steep premium expectation can act as a potential road block in the final discussions as MRF is believed to have offered ₹ 1,600-1,800 crore.

• Facebook's co-founder Eduardo Saverin, VC fund invest $11 million in local e-commerce site Hopscotch: Hopscotch, the Mumbai based babycare and kids products etailer, has raised $11 million in a second round of funding led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and Los Angeles headquartered early stage investor Velos Capital. The funding comes amidst a wave of consolidation in the nascent babycare and kids products etailing segment that has already seen a couple of players shutter operations and others seek buyers. The investment in Hopscotch marks Saverin's and Velos Partners' debut investment in India. Singapore-based Saverin, whose net worth at the time of the 2012 Facebook IPO was estimated at $4.2 billion, has been a prolific angel investor in technology startups in Southeast Asia and North America over the past few years. He is also chairman of the advisory board at Velos Partners, which primarily invests in consumer and technology companies. Apart from Saverin and Velos Partners, other investors in this round include Rise Capital, Jabbar Internet Group and existing investors LionRock Capital and Skype co-founder Tovio Annus.

• HUL Fails to Impress with Q3 Show: Hindustan Unilever (HUL) posted a third-quarter earnings performance that was below expectations and although the country's largest consumer goods company indicated it has seen a modest volume recovery in some categories over the past few weeks, the stock plunged 5.8% after the announcement. It closed 5.2% down at ₹892.8, the steepest drop in four years. Domestic sales, a proxy for consumer demand in the country, grew 8% to ₹7,774.4 crore from ₹7,223.3 crore a year ago, with volume growing at 3%.The Indian unit of AngloDutch Unilever said net profit rose 18% to ₹1,252 crore after exceptional income from the sale of properties. Excluding this, net profit rose 2% to ₹955 crore. Key categories have been tak ing a hit, an analyst pointed out, and the immediate prospects are bleak. “Growth in laundry and personal products has almost halved since last year,“ said Abneesh Roy, associate director at Edelweiss Securities. “Also, recovery in consumer demand won't likely be seen in the next two quarters for HUL.“ Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected HUL to post `. 1,081 crore in profit with 6% volume growth. To be sure, HUL outperformed the broader FMCG market, which saw 6% sales growth with 1% volume growth during the quarter.

• Satbir Singh to Join FCB Ulka as CCO in Feb: Satbir Singh, managing partner and chief creative officer (CCO) at Havas Worldwide India, has submitted his resignation at the advertising and marketing agency.He will join rival agency FCB Ulka as CCO with effect from February. Confirming the development, Nagesh Alai, chairman at FCB Ulka Group, said Singh will be a great addition to FCB Ulka's leadership team. Singh will replace K S Chakravar thy, popularly known as Chax, who quit FCB Ulka as national creative director last year. He will be relo cating to Mumbai from Delhi for the new position. “FCB is amongst India's largest agencies for a reason. My mandate is to persist with the good things, sharpen the others and add digital edge to our offering,“ Singh told ET. “Clearly it's time for smart, digitally-savvy large agencies to create work that speaks to people in their preferred medium, whether it's a 30inch screen or a 4-inch one,“ he said.

• TCS now India's most profitable company: After 23 years, India has a new numero uno when it comes to profitability. Information technology major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) posted a net profit of Rs 5,328 crore for the quarter ended December, overtaking Reliance Industries Ltd. The oil-to-telecom behemoth saw its profit dip to Rs 5,256 crore -its first decline in nine quarters -as falling crude prices hurt its core business. Though these figures are only for one quarter, it is still a significant moment as it's the first time an IT company has topped the profit charts. RIL itself had overtaken the previous leader, Tata Steel, on the back of changes in the economy unleashed by the reforms. “Being the best growth company in an industry with huge growth potential, the performance of TCS is one that is sustainable in the long run,“ Shashi Bhusan, senior research analyst at Prabhudas Lilladher said. Analysts said that though the outlook for the commodities sector in general and crude in specific is currently subdued, TCS grabbing the top spot underlines the emergence of the IT sector as force undeterred by macro-economic concerns and business cycles. Commenting on the third quarter performance, TCS CEO N Chandrasekaran said, “We have maintained our momentum in a traditionally weak quarter for the IT industry . Based on our progress this quarter, we are well on our way to post industry-leading growth for FY15.“

• Warrants to Help Marans Retain Stake in SpiceJet, to Exit When Time is Right: The Marans will stay invested as a majority shareholder in SpiceJet even after Ajay Singh takes over, waiting till the situation at the company and industry improves, so they can take a better exit. SpiceJet announced on last Friday that it will transfer ownership from Kalanithi Maran to Singh, its founder. Singh later said he will bring in JP Morgan and another Indian investor into the airline. Maran and his wife currently own just over 58% in the airline through the holding company KAL Airways. SL Narayanan, CFO of Maran's Sun Group, said the deal will lead to the entire transfer of stake. However, the Marans currently hold warrants in the airline which will be fully paid up after the deal, by investment of ₹80 crore, said Narayanan, which will give them a 23% shareholding in the company. One part of the warrant-to-share conversion will be done in April this year and the remaining, a year later. The new investors will also issue fresh shares to infuse capital into SpiceJet, Narayanan said, possibly through a rights issue, which will lead to further dilution of the stake that the Marans hold. They will hold on to that shareholding until l they get a better valuation. “We hope some sanity will return to the industry. We will wait till then (for an exit),“ he said.

• Ready to Re-train Staff on Basic Courtesy: McDonald's: McDonald's India, the country's largest burger chain, said it will re-train its employees “where required“ after a staffer in a Pune outlet asked a destitute child to leave, prompting condemnation on social media. The store was closed temporarily on Sunday after locals attacked it. McDonald's Pune is operated by Hardcastle Restaurants, which manages 202 of the fast-food outlets in the west and south and employs 7,500 people. “We shall examine if, in any manner, there has been a breach in basic courtesy and respect and take appropriate action, including re-training where required,“ a McDonald's spokesperson said in response to a query from ET. A female customer had taken a street child inside the outlet to buy him food and was standing with him in the queue when a McDonald's staffer allegedly pushed the boy out, saying: “These kind of people were not allowed inside the store.“ She managed to buy him a Fanta Float, a beverage owned by Coca-Cola, the global beverage partner of McDonald's. She subsequently posted details of the incident on Facebook. The incident allegedly took place on January 10.“This is proof that the voice on the other side is getting empowered. It's the first major example of a complaint cascading into something so big in India. In the past, brands planned a controlled message to stakeholders through their PRbrand teams. Today , every employee is a brand ambassador and the carrier of messages. Therefore it becomes imperative for every employee to live the brand,“ said Anusha Shetty , CEO of social media agency Autumn Worldwide. 

• Flipkart joins hands with online education pioneer TCYonline: Homegrown e-retailer Flipkart has joined hands with online education pioneer TCYonline to offer a wide spread of test preparation tools, the company said today. Starting January 19, products/coaching material for over 90 exam categories from TCYonline will be exclusively available for 90 days on Flipkart. The partnership will offer students across India access to an entire gamut of educational offerings from TCYonline, the company said in a release. TCYonline is one of the largest and most popular testing platforms in the country with tests from over 50,000 teachers across 90+ exam categories.

International:

• Nestle plans to invest $138 million in Egypt in next few years: Swiss food giant Nestle plans to invest about 1 billion Egyptian pounds ($137.93 million) in Egypt in the next few years and believes economic reforms could deliver results, its regional CEO said on Monday. Political and economic instability triggered by the uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 have not discouraged Nestle from investing about the same amount in the years since then. "Certainly the kind of investments we have made over the last three to four years are the kind of vision that we would have for this market also going forward," Suresh Narayanan, its North East Africa Region CEO, told Reuters in an interview. Nestle aims to invest in manufacturing, new products and the nutrition and health industries, he said.

• Marc Bolland's strategy in focus as Marks & Spencer's clothes lose universal appeal: For generations, British children went to school in Marks & Spencer's clothes, teenagers turned to it for first interview suits and shoppers of all ages bought its underwear. But the arrival over the last 20 years of fast, cheap fashion at one end of the market and affordable luxury at the other has left M&S struggling to recapture its universal appeal. After 14 consecutive quarterly declines in clothing, footwear and homeware sales, time could be running out for the man tasked with finding a solution - Dutchman Marc Bolland. A rising share price, a strong dividend and signs of improvement in its clothes had largely kept investors onside during his five-year tenure, but a disastrous Christmas has reignited the question of whether M&S needs a fresh direction. A change of faces at the top of several of Britain's biggest retailers in recent months could also add to the momentum.

• Moschino Opens First U.S. Boutique in Los Angeles: Moschino opened its first U.S. boutique in Los Angeles today at 8933 Beverly Boulevard. The first concept store conceived by creative director Jeremy Scott, the 3,500-square-foot space, formerly Hadid Gallery, presents Scott’s colorful, pop vision in a clean, white space with large plate-glass windows facing the manicured street, all the better to show off the large-form installations, oversize cola cans, atop which mannequins in graphic crushed can-printed dresses and separates are perched in cheeky poses. Moschino sits on a stretch of Beverly Boulevard west of fashion-heavy Robertson Boulevard, which is part of the West Hollywood Design District. Most tenants are furniture stores, showrooms and art galleries, though Stella McCartney is a few doors east and Jenni Kayne’s retail flagship and Hedi Slimane’s design studio are a few blocks west.

• Aritzia Continues to Test New Store Concepts: Canadian retailer Aritzia is planning more growth in North America as it continues to test new store concepts. “There’s definitely room for more stores in the U.S. and more in New York,” said Oliver Walsh, chief marketing officer. “We have 22 stores in greater Toronto alone. We have 49 stores in Canada and we haven’t reached a ceiling.” Aritzia in 2011 unveiled its first New York store, a 10,680-square-foot unit on West Broadway in SoHo. That location will be expanded this year to 18,320 square feet. In addition, a new unit will open in the Flatiron District. It will be Aritzia’s third store in Manhattan after a 13,500-square-foot flagship on Fifth Avenue between 48th and 49th Streets that opened in 2012. The retailer also operates stores in Chicago; San Francisco; Dallas; Portland, Ore.; Seattle; Short Hills and Paramus, N.J.; San Francisco and Santa Clara, Calif., and Troy, Mich. “Los Angeles is on the horizon,” Walsh said.

• Colors of Benetton Names Trio of Executives: Benetton Group has named three new executives to develop its United Colors of Benetton label: Marco Messini, chief distribution and sales officer; John Mollanger, chief product and marketing officer; and Piero Maldini, retail director. “We’re going through a phase in which we are very intent on keeping the company’s business focused in tough market conditions,” said Benetton Group chief executive officer Marco Airoldi. Messini, who spent a decade at VF Corp., most recently as vice president of EMEA franchising for all the company’s brands, had also worked in sales for Diadora and Invicta. Mollanger was previously director of product and marketing for Asics in Japan, and had also worked for Nike and Puma in the U.S. and in Europe.

Tech:

• Nokia to Build 4G Network for Airtel: Nokia Networks has bagged a $200-million, or about ₹1,240-crore contract from Bharti Airtel to build the country's first 4G network in the 1800 MHz band in six telecom circles. The mobile technology arm of Nokia Corporation and Airtel will soon announce the deal that will cover Mumbai, MP, West Bengal, Odisha, Punjab and Kerala circles, one person aware of the development told ET. Both the companies have not responded to ET's queries as of press time. 4G, or fourth generation mobile communication technology , currently provides the fastest wireless internet connectivity in the country , with download speeds of up to 40 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20 Mbps. At present all 4G networks in the country run on the 2300 MHz band, which was auctioned by the government as broadband wireless spectrum (BWA) in the 2010 spectrum auctions, and use TDD-LTE technology . Airtel's 4G network in the 1800 MHz band will use the FDD-LTE technology that is older and more widely accepted globally than TDD-LTE.

• IBM unveils servers targeting eCommerce, mobile app economy: Tech giant IBM today unveiled the z13 mainframe servers, which will provide real-time encryption on all mobile transactions, targeting eCommerce and mCommerce firms in India. z13 is the first system able to process 2.5 billion transactions a day. Its transactions are persistent, protected and auditable from end-to-end, IBM said in a statement. "z13 system culminates a USD 1 billion investment, five years of development, exploits innovation of more than 500 new patents and represents a collaboration with over 60 clients underscoring IBM's singular commitment to providing higher value, innovative technologies to clients," it added. Explaining the rationale behind the creation of z13, IBM said as mobile adoption grows, consumers are driving exponentially larger numbers of mobile transactions.

• Facebook Messenger Testing Voice-to-text Conversions: Facebook is testing a new feature as part of its Messenger app that allows you to automatically convert voice messages into text. Voicetotext messenger Facebook Messenger testing voice to text conversionsDavid Marcus, vice president of Messaging at Facebook, announced the tests in a post on the social network. “We already offer a feature that enables people to send voice clips to their friends without having to type out the text. Today we are starting to roll out a small test that helps people read the voice clips they receive instead of having to play them out loud,” Marcus wrote. He added that the test is only running at a “tiny scale” right now, and that it’ll be made more widely available if it proves popular. I’d have though that being able to read the contents of a voice clip at a time when you perhaps wouldn’t be able to listen to a recording (in a meeting, for example) would prove useful to many users.

• Amazon to Push into Movie Theaters with 12 Original Titles per Year: Amazon has today announced that it will start work on making one dozen original movies for cinemas and Prime Instant Video subscribers each year. The resulting movies will still be shown first in cinemas, but will be available via its streaming service around 30 to 60 days after the theatrical premiere. The dozen movies per year goal is an ambitious one and work will start on the first of these later in 2015. The creative development process will be led by Ted Hope, Amazon said. The announcement follows news from last week that Amazon has signed Woody Allen to write and produce his very first TV show. Clearly, Amazon Studios is doubling down on its original content in 2015 in a bid to take on Netflix and other rival streaming services. Personally, I’d prefer one solid movie than 12 hurried efforts, but we’ll have to wait and see until the first one arrives before passing judgement on the quality of the content.

• Viber and Tango Temporarily Banned in Bangladesh: The Bangladeshi government placed a temporary ban on mobile messaging services Viber and Tango yesterday for undisclosed reasons, reports AFP. On orders from local law enforcement agencies, The Bangladesh Telecommunications and Regulatory Commission had shut down both services “for the time being,” according to a commission spokesman who didn’t offer any explanation for the BTRC’s decision. However, it’s likely that the services were shut down to prevent anti-government protesters from communicating freely with each other. Activists from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its allies are in a struggle to overthrow the current government, with recent protests turning violent and killing 27 people in the past two weeks.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• WS Retail to Separate Logistics Arm into Wholly-owned Unit: WS Retail, the top seller on online marketplace Flipkart, is looking to spin off its logistics arm, Ekart, into a wholly owned subsidiary to make the privately held company comply with regulatory requirements of different states, two people with knowledge of the plan said. The separation could happen before Flipkart’s proposed US listing, expected sometime next year, according to one executive. WS Retail was set up by Flipkart cofounders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2010. They sold off their stake in September 2012 and the company is now 46% controlled by former Flipkart employees and accounts for 85% of products sold on the etailer. “WS Retail will spin off their logistics arm as a separate entity and then do pretty much what US companies do, collect a fee for delivery,“ said a source on the condition of anonymity.

• Wanted, E-Comm Vendors: In India's flourishing online retail market one drag top players Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon face is the relatively low number of vendors, and they have come out with a slew of programmes to get millions of sellers from across the country to their marketplaces. E-commerce companies estimate that India currently has just over 1,00,000 active sellers on ecommerce platforms compared to millions of online sellers in China. To improve this rapidly, they have come out with several initiatives from launching dedicated YouTube channels and tying up with training institutes to teaming up with state handicraft centres to scouting for manufacturing hubs across cities. And the e-commerce companies have set ambitious goals. Amazon India, which started about 18 months ago with around 100 sellers, has currently about 16,000 vendors on its India marketplace site and is expected the build the vendors base multiple fold in the coming years. Together with its affiliate site Junglee.com, it has around 100,000 vendors. “We believe that with those numbers we have barely scratched the surface as there are millions and millions of small and medium businesses in India and I don't see an upper bound to the opportunity at this time,“ said Amit Deshpande, GM for seller services at Amazon India.

• Safari Storme, Scorpio Pass Army Test, Vie for Big Deal: The Tata Safari Storme and Mahindra Scorpio have cleared rigorous trials to participate in Indian Army tenders, people with knowledge of the matter said.The army is expected to shortly invite bids to supply vehicles under a contract that could be worth as much as Rs 500 crore to Rs 750 crore. The Army, which so far relied on Maruti Suzuki's Gypsy and the Mahindra Commander, had called for a new category of vehicles called GS800 -General Service 800. About 15 companies including Ford, Honda and Toyota participated in the initial discussions two-three years ago, but only the homegrown players, Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra, took part in the following round. The Army is looking for vehicles with hard top and 800 kg payload with an air-conditioning option. The Gypsy and Commander had in the past qualified under GS500 category, which had a maximum payload of 500 kg. Vernon Noronha head of defence and government business at Tata Motors, said the company has received intimation from the Army that the Storme has passed the test and will be allowed to bid in a tender for more than 3,200 vehicles, expected to be floated shortly.

• E-tailers launch YouTube channels, rope in trainers to widen seller base: In India's flourishing online retail market one drag top players Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon face is the relatively low number of vendors, and they have come out with a slew of programmes to get millions of sellers from across the country to their marketplaces. E-commerce companies estimate that India currently has just over 1,00,000 active sellers on ecommerce platforms compared to millions of online sellers in China. To improve this rapidly, they have come out with several initiatives from launching dedicated YouTube channels and tying up with training institutes to teaming up with state handicraft centres to scouting for manufacturing hubs across cities.

• Amazon Forays Into Movie Biz: Amazon.com is making a high-stakes foray into the challenging realm of independent movies, the latest step in its attempt to move beyond simply distributing digital entertainment content to creating it. Amazon said on Monday it was aiming to produce close to 12 movies a year for theatrical release which would then be available on its Prime video service within two months, significantly faster than the roughly oneyear wait it normally faces to stream Hollywood releases. Amazon expects to focus on “indie“ movies with budgets of between $5 million and $25 million, spokeswoman Sally Fouts said.While modest compared with Hollywood blockbusters, the move will add to already hefty spending at Amazon, potentially unnerving investors concerned about the company's lack of profitability. Such films have proved challenging even for major Hollywood studios such as Paramount and Warner Brothers, which have bowed out of the business in recent years, said Jeff Bock, Box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations. “It's a tough, tough racket to play consistently,“ he said, pointing to the difficulty of getting good content and the competition for quality productions at festivals like Sundance.

• Everyone Wants to Woo the Boy who Delivers: Ram Singh's daily beat is a 40-km stretch of Gurgaon's sector 31,45,46,39 and Jharsa `gaon'. The 26year-old Flipkart delivery agent dropped off 242 parcels on October 9, 2014, three days after the mega sale. He started delivering packages at 4 am and kept at it till 10pm. He was approached by rival Amazon, but spurned the offer. With millions of consumers now ordering about $10 billion worth of products ranging from food to furniture and from lipstick to lingerie online, demand for ace delivery boys like Singh is rising. About 2.5-3 lakh are already delivering goods ordered online all over the country, according to estimates by Ikya Human Capital Solutions. Large ecommerce companies like Flipkart, Snapdeal, etc, are all looking to double the number of such delivery agents they source from staffing firms. “High-performing team members like Ram Singh are an essential part of our success story,“ said Neeraj Aggarwal, senior director, Last Mile Deliveries.Flipkart has more than 12,000 dedicated delivery agents, largely provided by major vendor Ekart.

• Screwvala Returns to Media Space with a Digital Brand: Entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala, who sold his erstwhile UTV Group to The Walt Disney Company last year, is returning to the media and entertainment sector by launching a digital media company in partnership with B Saikumar, former group CEO of Network 18. While Screwvala will bring in the initial investment of `. 150 crore, Saikumar will head the company as its managing director. The two have also roped in Ajay Chacko, former COO at Network 18, as the CEO. Based out of Mumbai, the company will start off with a digital brand offering multigenre, multi-lingual content across video, audio, text and other traditional and newage forms, the two founding partners said. Video content will be a key part of the offering and to create that the company will source talent from the broadcasting sector across the globe, Saikumar said. He said the company will carry out a global talent hunt across tech, design and content space. He is also bul ish on global syndication.

• InMobi to be `Pivot'al for Better Connect: Mobile advertising network InMobi is all set to woo large enterprises with a new analytics service that will mark a crucial shift in the business model of the eight-yearold company that is looking to revive growth and investor interest. The move, termed as a “pivot“, will see InMobi -combine data from clients with insights on consumer behaviour that it has gathered -create new marketing strategies for enterprises. This will pitch the company into direct competition with global players such as Google, Acxiom, Experian and Harte Hanks. “The trials have already begun,“ said a person with direct knowledge of the development. “This pivot will make InMobi an early mover in this space.“ Experts are of the view that for mobile advertising networks that are increasingly dependent on algorithms that churn out programmed output, looking beyond is proving to be crucial. “Companies like InMobi have to pivot because of the complex channels of data involved (online, offline, beacon, mobile),“ said Michael J Becker, managing partner of mCordis, a consulting firm that advises companies on mobile trends and advertising strategies.

• Lessors Want SpiceJet to Return 15 Boeing Planes: Cash-strapped SpiceJet’s troubles aren’t quite over even as its new promoters, led by Ajay Singh, plan to infuse funds to revive the carrier. Aircraft lessors want 15 of the airline’s 20 Boeing planes to be returned, possibly stalling the government’s plan to relax SpiceJet’s advance booking limits beyond March 28. The lessors have asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to deregister the aircraft that they want to repossess. However, sources close to the new promoters say they are in talks with the lessors and a solution will be found soon. BOC Aviation, which has leased three aircraft to SpiceJet, met DGCA Director General M Sathiyavathy on Friday and requested her to deregister their aircraft. “The lessors fear a Kingfisher kind of situation and they might not be able to take their aircraft back,” said a government source aware of the development. Kingfisher Airlines, grounded since October 2012, had leased its entire Airbus fleet, which consisted of over 100 planes at one point. SpiceJet has returned 20 aircraft in the past few months because it couldn't make lease payments, halving its Boeing fleet size. The airline is said to owe about ₹ 400 crore to lessors, although some sources peg the dues in the range of about ₹900 crore, a number the carrier has contested. The Ministry of Civil Aviation had in a letter dated January 17 asked the DGCA to reconsider an earlier order on booking curbs provided the airline is capable of carrying out uninterrupted operations.

• E-tailers seek sops to set up data centres: Amid growing concerns over Indian startups and entrepreneurs moving to tax-friendly countries such as Singapore, the poster boys of ecommerce -Flipkart, Snapdeal and InMobi -have pointed to the concessions on offer for setting up data centres there among other suggestions that the government is trying to respond to in the Budget. Sources said Flipkart's Sachin Bansal, Snapdeal's Kunal Bahl and InMobi's Naveen Tiwari had raised the issue of setting up data centres within the country during a pre-Budget meeting with finance minister Arun Jaitley and his team at North Block and underlined the need for retaining Indian intellectual property within the country . Data analytics is crucial for e-commerce companies since a huge amount of information is crunched regularly to deter mine consumer trends -for instance, the categories of products that sell more during Diwali or New Year.

International:

• Yahoo CEO poised to make fateful decision on Alibaba stake: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is facing her biggest business decision since she left Google two-and-a-half years ago to lead its struggling rival: how to manage Yahoo's most valuable asset, a 15 percent stake in Chinese Internet star Alibaba Group worth nearly $37 billion. "This is a defining moment for her," says Eric Jackson, managing partner of hedge fund Ironfire Capital, a long-time Yahoo shareholder. "Marissa has a chance to really boost the stock if she plays her cards right." Mayer has promised to outline her Alibaba plans on or before Jan. 27, when the company will release its fourth-quarter earnings. Most investors are hoping Mayer will spin off the Alibaba stake to ease Yahoo's tax bill after the company sells those holdings. Mayer also is under pressure to return windfalls from Yahoo's Asian investments to shareholders instead of plowing more money into an acquisition strategy that some think hasn't paid off. Activist investor Jeffrey Smith has threatened to lead a shareholder rebellion aimed at ousting Mayer if she proposes a plan that doesn't maximize Yahoo's tax savings or risks squandering money on far-flung acquisitions.

• Netflix shares up on strong earnings: Shares in internet TV streaming service Netflix have risen over 12% in after-hours trading after the company reported better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings. Netflix made $83m (£55m) in net income during the three-month period ending in December, versus $48m a year ago. The company also reported growing international subscriptions that beat its estimates. Netflix has 57.4m global subscribers, with 18.28m from outside the US. The company said that it would complete its international expansion efforts in two years - ahead of schedule - and that that expansion will be profitable. It also added it expected to offer Sony's controversial film, The Interview, to subscribers only 30 days after its release, on 24 January. Netflix added that revenue rose 23% from to $1.48bn during the quarter. While the company also issued rosy predictions for 2015, it nonetheless added that competition in the sector - from HBO's newly announced Go streaming service to CBS's offerings - was increasing. Netflix also said that piracy remained a big problem for the company. 

• Robert Graham to Open Columbus Circle Store: Robert Graham will open its second retail store in New York City in The Shops at Columbus Circle at Time Warner Center in early April. The 743-square-foot shop will carry men’s sportswear, premium denim, furnishings, accessories, outerwear, eyewear, footwear, jewelry and women’s sportswear. In addition, the brand’s fragrance, loungewear and tailored clothing will be added when they launch this fall. Michael Buckley, chief executive officer of the company, said the door would complement the brand’s existing Bleecker Street location in the West Village. “The Shops at Columbus Circle is a fine retail destination for fashion and style,” he said. “We are very confident the center’s dynamic reputation, paired with its incredibly fashionable customer base and central location, will serve the Robert Graham brand well.”

• Margarita Arriagada, Maureen Watson to Leave Sephora: Calvin McDonald, president and chief executive officer of Sephora Americas, reorganized Sephora’s management structure Tuesday following the decision of Margarita Arriagada, chief merchant of Sephora, to retire. Her decision to step down was part of a series of changes, involving three top positions. Another senior executive is leaving the retailer and a third is being promoted to a high-profile position within the organization. In a memo to brand partners, McDonald noted that Arriagada and Maureen Watson, senior vice president of merchandising, are leaving the company, and Artemis Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of Sephora inside J.C. Penney Co. Inc., will assume Watson’s role.

• Carbon38 Celebrates Two Years in Business: Professional ballerinas Katie Warner Johnson and Caroline Gogolak hit on something with high-end, activewear e-tailer Carbon38. The two celebrated the two-year mark of their company Saturday at a private residence in the Hollywood Hills as they evaluate new projects this year in a bid to grow the business and give it a leg up on competitors in the rapidly growing activewear market. “Spandex is the new denim,” Warner Johnson, who serves as cofounder and chief executive, said. Carbon38 offers a curated mix on its site of 35 to 47 brands, including Michi, Lorna Jane, Pilot Athletic and Vie Active. The idea is to offer fashion that takes the wearer from the gym to a night out — hence their hashtag, #RuninRunway.

Tech:

• It's More than 140 Characters: Twitter Buys Indian Company: ZipDial has become the first Indian technology product startup to be bought by Twitter in what is the third such deal led by a global corporation following the acquisitions by Facebook and Yahoo last year. The ZipDial deal -appropriately announced in an official tweet on Tuesday morning -is expected to cost Twitter $34-35 million (₹215 crore), according to people aware of the transaction. ET could not independently verify the size of the deal. The four-year-old Bengaluru based startup -co-founded by Valerie Wagoner, an Americanorigin entrepreneur who gradu neur who graduated from Stanford University -has built a thriving business around the “missed call“. This feature is expected to help Twitter reach people who will come online for the first time in countries such as Brazil, India and Indonesia, mostly using a mobile device. “But the cost of data may prevent them from experiencing the true power of the Internet,“ said Christian Oestlien, vice-president for products at Twitter. “Twitter, in partnership with ZipDial, can make great content more accessible to everyone,“ he noted. Although Twitter does not disclose user numbers by geography , eMarketer pegs the number at over 22 million in India.

• Airtel, Idea, RCOM Likely to Make Gains in Q3 Riding on Data Wave: Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications may report robust net profit growth in the three months ended December as subscribers made more calls and used more of their pricey data services, analysts say . Sequentially, all three companies are expected to report flattish voice revenue per minute, but an increase in call minutes is likely to drive revenue growth in the October-December quarter, they say. Robust revenue growth from data amid reduced competition has been a big plus for the sector, with pricing power returning after several quarters of tariff wars. Sector watchers expect margins to improve by about 20-30 bps due to reduced diesel prices and operating leverage, but accelerated network expansion and the associated increase in network operating expenditure will take away some of the benefits. “The three incumbents continue to gain share of hi-speed wireless broadband subscribers as data consumers in India continue to vote in favour of quality over price. This is a critical difference versus the voice market,“ Kotak Institutional Equities said in a report.

• Facebook's co-founder Eduardo Saverin, VC fund invest $11 million in local e-commerce site Hopscotch: Hopscotch, the Mumbai based babycare and kids products etailer, has raised $11 million in a second round of funding led by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and Los Angeles headquartered early stage investor Velos Capital. The funding comes amidst a wave of consolidation in the nascent babycare and kids products etailing segment that has already seen a couple of players shutter operations and others seek buyers. The investment in Hopscotch marks Saverin's and Velos Partners' debut investment in India. Singapore-based Saverin, whose net worth at the time of the 2012 Facebook IPO was estimated at $4.2 billion, has been a prolific angel investor in technology startups in Southeast Asia and North America over the past few years. He is also chairman of the advisory board at Velos Partners, which primarily invests in consumer and technology companies. Apart from Saverin and Velos Partners, other investors in this round include Rise Capital, Jabbar Internet Group and existing investors LionRock Capital and Skype co-founder Tovio Annus.

• Netflix to stream ‘The Interview’ on Jan 24 for no extra charge to subscribers: Few movies has had a stranger premiere than Sony’s “The Interview.” After being released online following a slew of hacks and unsubstantiated terrorist threats, there was one platform it was notoriously missing from: Netflix. Fret no more. During its earnings call today, the streaming serviced announced “The Interview” would be released on its platform on Saturday, January 24. That sucks a bit if you already paid to watch the movie, but should surely please those with a subscription who have been on the fence about watching it so far. Streaming will only be available in the US and Canada however. There is a theatrical release slated for February 6 in the UK.

• Facebook Now Allows You To Report False News: Everyone on Facebook has that one friend that posts outlandish stories that end up being a hoax, but usually they’re utterly convinced that it’s the real deal. Today, Facebook has added the ability to flag a news story as a hoax. When you see something that is obviously not real like a made-up celebrity death or fake startup, you can choose to report posts as a “false news story.” When many people flag a post as a false story, it’ll show less in the News Feed and eventually will show a warning that a number of others have reported it for false information. The company says that most people share fake news before quickly deleting it once their friends point out that it’s not real. This mechanism helps prevent the spread of those kinds of stories on Facebook. Facebook isn’t quite targeting satire sites like The Onion, however, saying “we’ve found from testing that people tend not to report satirical content intended to be humorous, or content that is clearly labeled as satire.”

• Starbucks Starts Wireless Charging Pilot in the UK: Following on from the start of its US rollout in June last year, Starbucks is today starting to introduce wireless charging stations inside certain London locations. Unlike Qi-based, NFC charging, Starbucks’ system uses magnetic wireless charging, meaning you’ll need a little adapter to plug into your phone. The dongle’s, pictured below, are available for free use in store, or you can buy your own for £10, a spokesperson told TNW. For now, the trial is contained to just 10 stores in London, and there are no plans to take it further afield right now.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• India, US to Untie Transfer Pricing Knot: India and the US have finalised a framework to resolve transfer pricing cases, some of them pending for five years, in what could end tax trauma for more than 50 American MNCs such as Microsoft, IBM and Oracle by the fiscal year-end and send a strong signal to overseas investors that the Modi government is indeed committed to a non-adversarial tax regime. With President Barack Obama arriving in a few days, officials of the two countries are trying to hammer out agree ments on various pending issues. Under the transfer pricing deal, both sides have also agreed to respect bilateral advance pricing arrangements. Bilateral advance pricing arrangements (APAs) would allow American companies to ascertain their tax liability in India beforehand, said a government official aware of the development. Tax authorities will be able to resolve as many i as 50 of the nearly 200 pending cases before the t end of the financial year. This could save companies thousands of crores of rupees in tax claims.

• Fast-Growing Zomato to Tank up on $80 m: Online restaurant listing guide Zomato is likely to raise fresh funding of up to $80 million (₹490 crore) as it aims to recruit more people and expand business in two continents, including in the US where it will battle the might of Yelp, one of the world's largest restaurant listing guides. The fresh infusion of capital from both new and existing investors will top up the $60 million (₹370 crore) received by the Gurgaon-based company -from majority owner Info Edge, Sequoia Capital and Vy Capital in November -and could be used to increase field staff in specific American cities and boost marketing spend in Australia ahead of the cricket World Cup starting in February. “The company needs another round of funding,“ said Deepin der Goyal, the founder and chief executive officer of Zomato, in a conference call with analysts on Wednesday . He did not specify the exact amount or when his company expects to raise the money. Founder Deepinder Goyal said Zomato will “not focus on new acquisitions in the next six to nine months“. Earlier this month, Zomato bought Seattle-based UrbanSpoon, paying $52 million in an all-cash deal. 

• Luxury Brands Now Play to Art Galleries to Bond with the Rich: Sellers of luxury products and services are increasingly using art as a platform to connect with their target buyers. From wealth managers and diamond merchants to luxury carmakers and even insurers, companies are associating with art fairs, exhibitions and galleries to get access to the rich who invest in art. “Businesses today are looking at interesting ways to reach out to quality audience,“ said Sanjay Sharma, India head at global auction house Christie's. German luxury carmaker BMW, for example, will provide some 40 high-end cars for pick and drop service for art collectors during the annual India Art Fair in the capital later this month. These collectors are people with money and a taste for good things in life -clearly potential candidates for super luxury cars. Multinational insurance company AIG recently sponsored an Art Week event in Mumbai. “India is a growing market for us and we are looking to reach out to new clients by participating in art events,“ said Ronald Fiamma, global head of private collections at AIG.

• Jewellers Turn to Franchisees to Reach Out to More Buyers: Branded jewellers are looking at the franchisee route to expand their retail footprint, a strategic turn prompted by the volatility in gold prices and erosion of margins over the past two years. Rajesh Exports, Gitanjali Group, TBZ the Original, PN Gadgil Jewellers and others have opted for this route to grow their businesses as the margins in plain gold jewellery have tumbled to 4% from 15-20% two years ago. Higher rentals, which push up the operational cost, also figure among the reasons for choosing the franchisee route, according to jewellers. The latest entrant in the franchisee business is the Mumbaibased TBZ (Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri) the Original. “In today's world, the brand has to make an effort to go to customers and franchising model is a global tactic to deepen penetration and explore newer markets,“ said Prem Hinduja, CEO of TBZ.

• Double Taxation a Headache for India's Product Startups: India's software product startups plan to approach the finance ministry this week to get the ambiguity cleared in this Union Budget on the pending issue of whether software sold in the country should be classified as a product or service. Tax officials have been levying both value-added tax and service tax on sales of software products in the country, a move that's prompting many companies to shift their registered offices overseas. “Today, anything intangible is classified as a service for the purpose of levying a direct or indirect tax. Software products, while intangible, are not a service. Unless direct and indirect tax laws are urgently upgraded, we will not be able to build a product industry in India,“ said Sharad Sharma, cofounder of iSpirt, a software product think-tank. Largest product startups from India such as Druva, AdNear, Freshdesk, InMobi have shifted their domicile outside the country. According to iSpirt, India's software product industry can gross $100 billion in revenues by 2025 if favourable laws are in place. Currently, the industry is just 2% of India's total Indian IT industry, which is expected to gross $118 billion this year.

• Maxx Mobilink to Start Local Manufacturing of Handsets: Indian smartphone maker Maxx Mobilink plans to start production of mobile handsets at its Haridwar plant, beginning with assembling devices from April at the factory where it currently manufactures accessories such as battery and charger. The company's plans come at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged manufacturers to `make in India' and reduce the country's dependence on imports for gadgets such as mobile phones. “Subsequently we will manufacture both feature phone and smartphone at the facility and will also set up a research and development (R&D) lab to support manufacturing,“ Maxx Mobilink chairman and managing director Ajjay Agarwal told ET. India's third largest mobile vendor Lava, too, has revealed its intention to start manufacturing in the country. It has also said that it will start assembling devices at its Noida factory from April and is planning to set up a factory at a cost of ₹500 crore over three years, besides looking at buying Nokia's Chennai plant.

• Snapdeal eyes 80% business from mobile phones: Aiming to generate 80 per cent of its business from the mobile phone segment, Snapdeal, India’s largest online marketplace, is enhancing technology. Most of the $ 627 million the company raised from Japanese investor SoftBank recently could be used to drive technology and, consequently, sales. At the end of 2014, about 60 per cent of Snapdeal’s traffic was accounted for by mobile phones. The company, which recently readied an innovation centre in Bengaluru, is beefing up its technology team and hiring 1,500 techies from internet companies around the world. “ At the pace at which we are growing, if possible, we would have hired everyone by yesterday. While internet penetration is still low in the country, we are confident we will have 80 per cent of our traffic from mobile very soon,” said Amitabh Misra, senior vice- president ( engineering), Snapdeal. Though the launch of a fourth generation (4G) network in India might aid Snapdeal’s plans, Misra, who has a decade of experience at Silicon Valley, is confident of meeting the target even without this. In the past years, Snapdeal has grown sixfold. For goods sold recently, the company clocked an annualised gross merchandise value ( GMV) of $ 2 billion. It plans to clock another $ 1 billion in GMV this year. “ We are pretty clear we are a tech company and will do anything possible, at any available platform, whether it’s the technology process, the infra platform or strengthening the team.

• Maruti Sukuki, Lloyd jump on bandwagon: Automobile major Maruti Suzuki and consumer durables maker Lloyd Electric have signed as on- air sponsors for the Cricket World Cup beginning February 14, sources say. When contacted, officials at STAR Sports, which will broadcast the tournament, confirmed this. Through the tournament, Lloyd will promote its Lloyd Air Conditioners brand. STAR Sports is also in talks with other advertisers, including those in the handset and ecommerce segments. However, before signing up, many are tracking India’s performance during the ongoing tri- series in Australia. “ How advertisers respond to the World Cup will depend largely on India’s performance in the runup to the tournament, as well as its performance during the World Cup. If India does well, the response from advertisers will be good,” says Ashish Bhasin, chairman and chief executive (South Asia), Dentsu Aegis Network. Shantanu Dasgupta, vicepresident (corporate affairs and strategy), Whirlpool, says, “The tri- series will determine how strong India is in OneDayers. We will then take a call on whether or not to invest in the Cricket World Cup.” On- air sponsorship rates for the tournament have been estimated at about ₹ 3 lakh/ 10 seconds, lower than the ₹ 5 lakh/ 10 seconds for the eighth edition of the Indian Premier League ( IPL), which begins in April. Multi Screen Media, the IPL broadcaster, is also making presentations to media planners and buyers.

• TomTom to sell GPS Sport Watches in India through Flipkart: TomTom today announced the launch of its range of GPS sport watches in India which will be available exclusively on Flipkart.com. The TomTom Runner and Multi-Sport GPS watches deliver real-time information such as time, distance, heart rate, pace, speed and calories burnt to runners, cyclists and swimmers. Amitesh Jha, Sr Director, Retail, Flipkart said, "We are excited to announce the exclusive launch of TomTom's first range of GPS watches in India. Targeted primarily at runners, cyclists, swimmers, this new range will be an extension of our fitness portfolio. Staying fit is one of top priorities today for the urban Indian youth and we have seen a recent surge in demand for fitness products. With the introduction of the TomTom GPS sport watches we are able to widen our portfolio of fitness products for our customers."

International:

• EBay to cut 2,400 jobs, sell enterprise unit ahead of PayPal split: EBay Inc plans to cut its workforce by 7 percent, or 2,400 jobs, in the current quarter and is exploring a sale or public offering of its enterprise unit as the e-commerce company prepares to split from its payments division, PayPal, this year. The jobs will be cut across the marketplace, payments and enterprise divisions, eBay said on Wednesday in its fourth-quarter earnings report. EBay said it entered into a standstill agreement with Carl Icahn, its largest active shareholder, and appointed to its board Icahn Capital executive Jonathan Christodoro. It also is adding two Wall Street bankers to its board, expanding the number of directors to 15. PayPal agreed to adopt a number of measures proposed by Icahn, which the billionaire said enhanced corporate governance at the payments giant.

• Wal-Mart launches in-store tax refunds: Wal-Mart Stores Inc has launched a service allowing customers to pick up tax refunds in cash at stores across the United States. The service, Walmart Direct2Cash, was made available at Wal-Mart stores from Tuesday, the company said. The world's largest retailer is working with Tax Products Group (TPG), a unit of Green Dot Corp, and Republic Bank & Trust Co. Wal-Mart will not charge a fee for the service, although customers could be charged up to $7. Sterne Agee analyst Thomas McCrohan said the service would appeal most to customers without a bank account, who would otherwise pay a higher fee to convert a tax-refund check into cash.

• Vilebrequin to Open Atlanta Store: Vilebrequin will open its first store in Atlanta, at the Buckhead Atlanta development, in April. The 827-square-foot store will sport the brand’s new Dune concept, a design that speaks to the brand’s San Tropez history with changing rooms that are reminiscent of beach huts and beams of light that project from the ceiling that are like beams of the sun. The store will carry men’s and boys’ swimwear as well as men’s ready-to-wear, women’s and girls’ swimwear. Other brands with stores at the development include Christian Louboutin, Helmut Lang, Hermès, Moncler and Theory.

• Pinterest Buys Machine Learning Firm Kosei: Pinterest, fashion’s favorite online scrapbook, is boosting its machine learning and data science brainpower to help convert its devoted user base into dollars. Michael Lopp, head of engineering at Pinterest, said in a blog post today that the company had acquired machine learning firm Kosei to “accelerate our work in discovery and monetization.” The social network already uses machine learning in its advertising business to understand ad performance and predict what will be relevant to users. Lopp said Kosei included “some of the best minds in machine learning and data science” and has been building a technology that “drives commerce by making highly personalized and powerful product recommendations.”

• P&G's David Taylor Adds President of Global Beauty to Title: David Taylor has landed in an enviable spot. Buoyed by a promotion to oversee the beauty business, the Procter & Gamble Co. veteran has found himself the front-runner in the race to eventually succeed A.G. Lafley, the firm’s chairman, president and chief executive officer. Taylor’s rise has dimmed the chances of Deb Henretta, P&G’s group president of Global Beauty, who was once seen as an early contender for the top job. Taylor, group president of Global Health & Grooming, will double the scope of his responsibilities by adding the beleaguered beauty business to his domain, according to sources citing an internal announcement. While Taylor will become group president of Global Beauty, Grooming & Health Care, effective Feb. 1, Henretta, the head of beauty, will move into the newly created leadership position of group president of Global E-business. She will be succeeded by Patrice Louvet, now group president of Global Cosmetics, Prestige and Salon Professional, who will maintain his duties while adding personal, skin and hair care. He will assume her title of group president of Global Beauty.

Tech:

• WhatsApp Finally Launches on the Web: It seems the day many people have been waiting for is finally here – WhatsApp is now available on your desktop, but only if you’re an Android, Windows Phone or BlackBerry user. The new Web client is actually a simple mirror from the WhatsApp app on your phone, so in order to use it, you’ll need to have an active connection on your phone, not just your computer. To start, you’ll need to scan a QR code and have the latest version of WhatsApp installed on your phone. You’ll also need to be using the Chrome browser on the desktop. WhatsApp founder Jan Koum said that due to “Apple platform limitations”, there’s no iOS version on the way for now.

• Windows 10 to get 'holographic' headset and Cortana: Microsoft has revealed that Windows 10 will bring its voice-controlled assistant Cortana to PCs. It also unveiled a headset that it said would one day project the operating system over views of the real world. In addition, the firm announced that the OS upgrade would be offered free of charge for devices running Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Phone. The offer, which is limited to the Windows 10's first year of release, may aid its adoption. It marks a change in strategy from Microsoft's previous policy of charging for major updates, and could help avoid a repeat of the relatively slow uptake of Windows 8.

• Lava to Sell New Brand on Own Online Platform: Home-bred Lava International will soon launch a sub-brand of its popular Xolo brand of smartphones exclusively on an e-commerce platform it is developing, as the country's third largest smartphone maker strives to replicate the success of foreign rivals Xiaomi and Motorola's `online-only' strategy. Vishal Sehgal, co-founder and director at Lava, did not reveal the name of the new sub-brand but confirmed that its launch and that of the e-commerce site will coincide. With the launch of the website, Lava will become the second Indian smartphone maker after Micromax to follow in the footsteps of the global majors, which have tasted immense success through their online-only model in India Micromax-owned Yu Televentures is selling its first smartphone, Yureka, exclusively through Amazon since January 13. Lava's move also follows Xiaomi's successful strategy in China, where it sells via its own e-commerce site. Xiaomi, which has used the model to dethrone Samsung as China's largest smartphone maker, plans to open an e-commerce site in India as well. Xiaomi not only sells handsets online but also cultivates its customer base through its own software, services and entertainment offerings.

• Motorola Offers Buyback on Gen 2 Moto G and X: Motorola India has introduced a fiveday buyback offer period for its popular Moto X (Gen 2) and Moto G (Gen 2) models to mark India's Republic Day. Under this offer, open from January 19 to January 23, customers can get up to ₹4,000 off on Moto G and up to ₹ 6,000 on Moto X in exchange for old smartphones, while the Moto 360 buyers will get a free Motorola Bluetooth Headset, reports Our Bureau. Motorola is also running an offer in which one can avail 10% cash-back on HDFC credit and debit cards for a minimum transaction of ₹ 7,500.

• Twitter now rolling out ‘while you were away’ recap in mobile apps: Earlier in January we reported that Twitter was testing a ‘while you were away’ feature in its mobile apps for some users that recaps what happened since you last visited, but now it’s rolling out for everyone. Twitter announced today that the feature, called Recap, is beginning rollout to everyone starting today for iOS users and later for Android users. In the announcement blog, the company said that its goal is to “help you keep up […] with your world no matter how much time you spend on Twitter.” This new feature will definitely help those who are newer to the service and aren’t quite accustomed to how fast paced it can be. The New York Times reports that users won’t have control over when Recap appears or the ability to specify what kinds of tweets it shows.

• Dropbox for Windows Phone has arrived: Not only has the long-awaited WhatsApp Web app launched, but today also brings the introduction of the much-anticipated Dropbox for Windows Phones and tablets. Announced in a blog post, the new apps offer access to the core Dropbox features you’d hope to see, like automatic photo backups, your favorite files (accessible online or offline), and multi-account support for people who have a separate work and personal account to maintain on a single device. For the phone version, you can also pin any specific Dropbox folder to your Start screen for swift access. Microsoft said that Windows Phone 8.0 and 8.1 (and Windows tablet) users will be able to download the app from today.

• Google Reportedly Set to Launch a Wireless Carrier Service: Google is launching its own mobile carrier service, codenamed “Nova,” according to a report by The Information. The service is expected to operate on T-Mobile and Sprint’s wireless networks, and is aimed at lowering prices and improving the user experience with mobile carriers. The report also notes Google is developing new communication apps to go along with the service. The move would essentially allow Google to control all aspects of its users’ mobile experience, from software and hardware to the networks the devices run on. While Google itself would not comment, according to the report, the company has been working on the project since last fall, and may be launching the service as soon as this year.

Thought of the Day:

Today in History:

Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Fast Food Chains Take the Spice Route to Success: Fast food's hot new offerings in India are all, literally, hot.Fries, burgers, wraps from KFC, Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's that have high chilli quotient are among the best-selling products now. And there's no better, and hotter, example than KFC's Flaming Crunch Chicken, flavoured with one of the world's hottest chillies, the Assam-grown ghost pepper or `bhut jolokia'. Assam's ghost pepper is in the top ten of the world's hottest chillies and scores over one million in Scoville Heat Unit, a measure of spiciness. Ghost pepper-flavoured Flaming Crunch Chicken is one of KFC's most successful new launches in India, company officials say . Sales of crunch chicken have tripled since its December launch across 350 stores. Chilli is the management's favourite flavour in Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's too. For Dunkin', the Tough Guy Brute Burger is among the hottest burgers by taste and, six months after launch, by sales. For McDonald's, McSpicy and Masala Grill are the fastest-growing categories. Fast food's high chilli quotient, say chefs and industry executives, is another adaptation of western `bland' munchies for the Indian palate.

• Incredible India is a Rs 200-Crore Bounty for Ad Agencies: The tourism ministry has floated a tender for the ₹200crore Incredible India campaign, inviting bids from advertising agencies with revenues of at least ₹100 crore, a condition that rules ` out participation of mid-sized firms such as Contract, Rediffusion Y&R, Everest, Bates CHI, Grey or any Indian-owned agency like Concept group of companies and other smaller boutique shops. While the ministry runs this campaign every year, in the international leg this year it wants to focus especially on new markets like Russia and CIS countries, the Middle East and South America, among others. “The bidding agency must have a cumulative revenue from creative work equivalent to ₹ 100 crore or above in the last three financial years. In addition, the creative agency should have handled at least one creative account in any field, with revenue of over ₹5 crore, in any one of the last three years,“ says the tender notice. The ministry has also stated that the agencies will have to submit an earnest money deposit (EMD) or bid security of ₹ 50 lakh. This will be returned to “unsuccessful bidders...within one month of issue of the work ordercontract to the successful bidder“. According to the head of a nonparticipating agency, if the guidelines are strictly followed, only five agencies in India can bid for the account. These include Ogilvy & Mather, J Walter Thompson, McCann Erickson, Lowe and FCB Ulka, said the agency head, who did not wish to be named.

• Vistara Cuts Fare to Counter Rivals: Vistara, Tata Sons' joint venture carrier with Singapore Airlines, has brought ticket price levels lower to lessen the gaps with rivals -in some cases even offering cheaper tickets than competitors -after price-sensitive Indian customers opted for discounts offered by Jet Airways and Air India. The fares are almost half of what they were last week, data from travel portals and its own website showed. For instance, a Delhi-Mumbai ticket price booked for a flight a month in advance is ₹5,481, compared to about ₹10,700 last week.The price is lower than most rivals, including IndiGo. The airline, however, hasn't an nounced any discounts or offers for the lean season starting end January and continuing till April. “They are now at the levels of the others, barring some instances.Vistara isn't exactly undercutting anyone yet, nor is it playing the fare war,“ said an executive from Makemytrip, India's biggest online travel portal by sales. The airline is also at par or lower than rivals on spot fares.

• Flipkart to Revamp Tech, Invest $10 M in New Servers from Dell: Flipkart is ramping up its technology infrastructure by investing $10 million in new servers from Dell to build a private cloud, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. “Flipkart's Big Billion Day sale made it realise that its current IT infrastructure is not capable of supporting such massive spikes in traffic,“ said one of the people.“The company therefore decided to work towards building a robust private cloud by working with Dell.“ Dell first signed up with the country's largest online retailer to build a private cloud in February last year. However, following events such as the Big Billion Day sale and Xiaomi Mi3 flash sale, the current infrastructure was found to be inadequate to support the surge in traffic. The result was frequent outages and customers were unable to shop. “Technology plays an important role for Flipkart as it competes with Amazon,“ said the second person. “Unlike Amazon, which runs IT infrastructure not just for itself but also for thousands of other companies, Flipkart has yet to build a strong technology platform that is reliable enough during peak seasons.“ During the Big Billion sale, many customers complained about order cancellations after making payment, sudden changes in product prices and errors on the website. Flipkart said although it was prepared for 20 times surge in traffic, the actual traffic was a lot higher, with 15 lakh customers trying to visit the website. Founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal had to make a public apology about the incident.

• Tata-Tesco JV Plans Rs 250-Crore Investment to Open More Stores: Trent Hypermarket — the equally owned joint venture between the Tata Group and UK’s Tesco — plans to invest ₹250 crore as the only Indian multibrand retailer with foreign investment aims to open more stores. The planned expansion is likely to be seen as a test case for the ruling BJP’s stance towards foreign direct investment in the supermarket segment. The party’s stated policy is against FDI in stores selling multiple brands, but industry watchers and experts say the government is unlikely to meddle with Trent’s plan at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focused on bringing in investment. Trent’s board has been authorised to raise up to ₹250 crore through loans, guarantee, securities or way of subscription, according to a company resolution, a copy of which was filed with the Registrar of Companies earlier this month. The board passed the resolution on January 5. In December 2013, the previous Congress-led government had approved Tesco’s application to invest about $110 million (₹680 crore at current exchange rate) in the joint venture.

• ‘Jabong to enter $ 1- bn club this year’: Jabong, a leading fashion ecommerce company, looks set to enter the one billiondollar club this year. Rocket Internet- led Jabong reported agross merchandise value of $300 (₹ 1,800 crore) million at the end of 2013, which doubled in 2014 to about $ 600 million (₹ 3,600 crore). “We have grown by at least two times in 2014 but the exact numbers are yet to be firmed up. For 2015, the plans seem similar, as we would grow more than the market rate. As the industry is already on a high trajectory growth, we should be able to clock a growth of two times, maybe a bit more,” Praveen Sinha, co- founder &CEO of Jabong, told Business Standard.

• UltraTech Cement Notice to Portals for Selling Its Brands: First it was consumer companies crying foul about aggressive discounting by online portals, it now seems to be the turn of commodity manufacturers. Cement maker UltraTech Cement Ltd has directed at least two online marketplaces -ApnaStock and MaterialTree -to stop selling its brands -UltraTech and Birla Super brand of cement in Bangalore, stung by the shift of business to online marketplaces. A letter from the company to ApnaStock, which was accessed by ET says: “We have examined your proposal online along with regular cement retail stores with authorized dealership.We find it conflict of interest in dealing online versus regular onshop selling. Hence we cannot (sic) authorized to sell Ultratech products over ApnaStock Solution Pvt Ltd platform of online and offline selling.“ These online marketplaces buy bags of cement from authorised dealers of Birla at a price of about ₹ 385 a bag. In turn, they offer it to online shoppers at about ₹395, which is still below the price that a customer would pay for a similar bag of cement in a physical store. ApnaStock or MaterialTree are not Birla-authorised marketplaces.

• Sunil Sood to Replace Pieters as Vodafone India CEO: Vodafone India has named Sunil Sood, chief operating officer, as its next chief executive. He will replace Marten Pieters at the beginning of the next financial year. Pieters, the longest serving telecom head in the country at the moment and the only CEO to have seen all the spectrum auctions so far and the ups and downs of the industry , will retain a non-executive role on the board of India's No. 2 mobile operator. “Marten's term as chief executive has been marked by outstanding business performance and exemplary leadership in a highly complex sector and operating environment,“ Analjit Singh, chairman of the board of Vodafone India, said in the statement. The company will announce Sood's replacement shortly. Since Pieters took over as managing director and CEO in February 2009, Vodafone has expanded to an all-India operator, doubled its revenues, added more than 100 million custom ers, increased market share and launched data services used by more than 57 million customers.The company currently has some 177 million subscribers.

• Select Citywalk, Everstone form food court JV: Two well-known names have united to create a food court joint venture to tap the increasing demand for eating out. New Delhi-based mall operator Select Citywalk and Everstone Capital-owned Pan India Food Solutions have formed a 51:49 partnership to operate multi-brand food courts in high-traffic clusters such as shopping centres, airports and office campuses. The JV , which aims to create a single eco-system for various restaurant brands, will run food courts under `My Square' brand, similar to Singapore's Food Republic and US' HMS Host. Food courts, which started off in the west in the 1980s, have become popular in Asia's third largest economy too. For many Indians, a shopping experience in a mall is incomplete without hitting the food court. It is an equally common sight for people to grab a bite from the quick service outlets clustered in or around the airport. Globally , food court operators have emerged, improvising hawker fare by bringing food vendors together on a strong platform and tapping into the evolving consumption habits in fast-growth economies. In the Indian context, this segment has seen both value-for-money as well as fine dining experiences being offered together.

• Tata Motors launches Bolt hatchback at ₹ 4.64 lakh: Tata Motors on Thursday launched the Bolt, a hatchback, starting at ₹ 4.64 lakh ( ex- showroom, Mumbai). The company is pitting this car against segment leaders Maruti Suzuki Swift and Hyundai Grand i10. The Bolt, Tata Motors’ second launch in five months, is based on the platform of its compact sedan Zest. The base petrol variant of the Bolt costs ₹ 36,000 less than the Zest in Mumbai. The Bolt will be launched in 100 cities in aweek and will have four trim levels and two engine options, making it a total of eight variants for the hatchback. The top- end petrol version is priced ₹ 5.75 lakh while the base diesel variant comes at ₹ 6.34 lakh and the top- end diesel at ₹ 7.32 lakh. A senior company executive, however, said these were introductory prices and would be revised later. The Bolt shares most of its styling with the Zest and has the same 1.2 litre Revotron petrol engine and 1.3 litre Quadrajet diesel engine. The engines have been tuned to be more responsive for the Bolt.

• Kenstar launches split AC in exclusive tie up with Amazon: Strengthening its foothold in the Indian market, consumer durable maker Kenstar today announced its foray into the air conditioner segment and launched a lineup of split air conditioners, which would be sold exclusively on e-commerce giant Amazon.in. The new product range which comes with 3 to 5 BEE Star ratings starts from Rs20,990 and goes upto Rs 25,990 for a 5 star rated 1.5 ton AC. "We are proud to announce our association with the leading e-commerce player Amazon.in who has a wide reach and popularity among the tech savvy generation," said Rahul Sethi, President, Kenstar . "We are confident to reach our customers with this new product offering," he said further. According to Sethi, it is expected that the AC market in India will reach 4 million unit from the current 3.3 million unit in 2015. "In line with this growing demand we found immense potential in this segment to expand our product portfolio," said Sethi.

International:

• Apple's Tim Cook salary up over 40%: Tech giant Apple's chief executive Tim Cook's base salary was increased by nearly 43% in February last year, according to the company. Mr Cook's salary rose to $2m (£1.3m) from $1.4m, and his total remuneration more than doubled to $9.2m in 2014. The base salaries for other executives were also increased by over 14% to $1m, the company said in its annual report. Apple's New York listed shares had hit a record high last year, while almost 40 million iPhones were sold. The increase to Mr Cook's salary was the first since November 2011. He became the firm's chief executive in August 2011. In the report, Apple said the increases were given after reviewing "peer company" market data provided by its independent compensation consultant. 

• Florentia Village Shanghai Outlet Mall Opens: In the outer suburbs of Pudong, past farmland grazed by scraggly sheep, you will find an ersatz Italy. Terracotta and lemon yellow arches line the entrance of a 970,000-square-foot altar of fashion (made with real marble, no less). This is Florentia Village Shanghai, the second outlet mall of RDM China, the real estate development company of the Italy-based Fingen Group. The extravagance of Florentia Village, which opens Thursday, speaks for a sector on the rise. While China’s economic growth rate has slowed to 7.4 percent, its lowest in 24 years, its outlet mall sector is bucking the trend. Across the board, retail profit margins are suffering except for in two areas. The first is well documented — the online retail market, made famous by Alibaba’s historic $21.8 billion initial public offering last autumn. The second is outlet malls, less well known but still thriving.

• John Lewis Ramps Up Contemporary Brand Offer: British retailer John Lewis is ramping up the fashion quotient for spring, with a focus on contemporary brands for men and women. Central to its strategy is a new denim boutique called Denim Wardrobe that will launch at John Lewis’ Sloane Square unit on Jan. 28. The boutique is a partnership with the denim and contemporary retailer Trilogy, which has built a reputation on advising customers on the myriad fits and washes available in premium denim. The Denim Wardrobe concession will carry labels such as J Brand, AG and DL 1961, and be operated by John Lewis staff trained by Trilogy’s denim specialists. “The way that our customers are beginning to wear premium denim is much more flexible and much more wide reaching than it used to be,” said Ed Connolly, buying director for fashion at John Lewis. “We really think this boutique is going to resonate with our customer base very strongly.”

• Mali Targets 800,000 T Cotton Per Year by 2018: Mali plans to produce 800,000 tonnes of unginned cotton per year by 2018 after output surged by more than a quarter in the 2014/15 season on the back of improved farm inputs, the head of the state-owned textile development firm CMDT said on Thursday. Kalfa Sanogo said final production figures for the season stood at 552,000 tonnes, compared with 440,000 tonnes the previous season. "The government increased input subsidies and lowered the price of fertilizers. This significant grant from the state gave a lot of momentum to cotton production," Sanogo told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday in Bamako. Mali, Africa's third biggest gold producer behind South Africa and Ghana, also counts cotton as one of its main exports.

• Gerry Weber to Appoint Son of Founder as CEO: Germany's Gerry Weber said on Thursday it would appoint Ralf Weber, the son of the fashion group's founder, as head of the managing board from Feb. 25. Ralf Weber joined the three-man board in 2013 and was already head of sales and corporate development. His father Gerhard Weber, who owns a 29 percent stake in the firm, stepped down last year and joined the supervisory board. David Frink will give up the CEO post, but continue to run finance, logistics, IT, administration and human resources, the group said in a statement, while the third board member Arnd Buchardt remains in charge of products, brands and licences. Gerry Weber said shareholder representatives on the supervisory board had agreed to the step. Last month, the company agreed to buy fashion group Hallhuber and announced plans to return to the menswear market as part of its expansion strategy. The firm has been expanding beyond its home market and has said it could also make acquisitions to add brands to complement its Gerry Weber and Taifun lines, which cater to women in their mid-thirties and older, and the Samoon brand for plus-sized womenswear.

Tech:

• Higher Legal Risks Involved in the 4G Ecosystem Compared to 3G: Experts: India’s handset industry could see a spate of lawsuits around patent violations, as vendors launching low-cost 4G devices may look to cut expenses by resorting to copying rather than pay royalties to stay competitive in a fast growing market, say experts. Sweden’s Ericsson and China’s Huawei, which together hold a majority of patents related to fourth-generation communications technology, have warned potential offenders of litigation in case of patent violations. Handset makers, on the other hand, accuse the patent holders of misusing their dominant position and forcing them to agree to what they claim are unfair terms on patent-related payments, clearly underlining the fault lines in the telecom industry. In telecom, patent litigation is going to be huge all across the world and India is no exception,” said Pavan Duggal, a leading cyber law expert and advocate. As device makers, running on tight margins, look to cut costs, the potential to copy designs and “the other element of not using the right licences, cannot be ruled out”, Duggal said. Vendors may also look to circumvent expensive R&D investments and choose the more “economically viable” option of copying the technology, and then face potential risk of patent litigation as part of business risks, he added.

• Zomato can’t launch payment service in India: Zomato, the Indian restaurant search service, cannot introduce its latest innovation — cashless payment service — in India because of stringent credit card payment guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India ( RBI). USbased taxi aggregator Uber, too, had faced the same problem when it entered India last year. Gurgaon- based Zomato, one of the fastest growing start- ups in India, is set to unveil its cashless payment service in Dubai next month. “ We will start with Dubai, and see how it goes. We may look at India for this services at a later stage, depending on how things develop,” said Zomato’s co- founder Deepinder Goyal, referring to the regulatory hurdles. Cashless payment services are seen as a strong revenue contributor for Zomato, as the company will get a commission from restaurants for each transaction. The company is reported to be raising $ 80- 100 million in a fresh round of funding for expansions in certain countries; it is also hiring people. However, Goyal has declined any possibility of ‘ immediate’ fundraising for the company. According to him, the company is well funded for its capital requirements for the immediate future. Zomato has already added the payment option to its existing mobile application that would allow users to pay their restaurant bills through the app without exchanging cash. However, the feature is still inactive in the app that gets about 12 million visitors amonth.

• Jumping Into Augmented Reality, Microsoft Introduces 3-D Headset: Microsoft wants back in the game, and it is using a little science fiction to get there.The company on Wednesday , unveiled an unexpected new headset that allows interaction with holographic images, enabling people to play video games, build 3-D models and hold immersive videoconferences with colleagues. With the device, HoloLens, Microsoft is entering an increasingly crowded area, with giant competitors, in the world of virtual and augmented reality. Whether Microsoft can outmaneuver those companies, like Facebook and Google, is far from guaranteed.

• Govt plans free Wi-Fi in 2,500 cities & towns: As part of its `Digital India' scheme that aims to boost internet connectivity, the Centre will roll out free high-speed Wi-Fi in 2,500 cities and towns over the next three years, reports Pankaj Doval. BSNL will implement the Rs 7,000-crore scheme.However, after an initial period, one will have to pay for the service. The Wi-Fi speed will be “of 4G levels“ and 50,000-60,000 Wi-Fi hotspots will be set up.

• Twitter's Bing Tweet Translation Is Back: Twitter today announced that it’s resuming its team-up with Bing to let you read tweets in multiple languages. Translation functionality has waned on and off on Twitter, most recently re-appearing in Tweetdeck a couple of weeks ago. To activate the functionality, simply go to your account settings and select ‘Show Tweet translations.’ When looking at a tweet in a language you don’t understand, look for the globe icon located in the tweet. Simply click on the globe to expand the tweet, and a translation will appear below the original text. Alternatively, point your mouse to the “click to translate” prompt below an expanded tweet.

• Microsoft Announces Standalone Office 2016 for Later this Year: In Microsoft’s eternal quest to make you more productive, the company played up its new suite of universal Office for Windows 10 apps during the event for its new operating system yesterday. But in a blog post detailing new features today, the company snuck in an announcement: Office 2016 is being released the second half of 2015. Wait what? Yes, you read that right: there are two separate Office suites incoming. The touch-optimized Office for Windows 10 is slated to be the future of the company as it seeks to create universal apps that can work on anything from 84-inch displays to phones. Office 2016, on the other hand, will almost certainly be a version of Office more akin to what you already know and (maybe) love. In other words, just like past versions of Office, but with new features. This might not come as much of a surprise if you’re a Windows 8 user; there already exist separate versions of some Office apps for Microsoft’s “modern” UI (AKA Metro). OneNote, for instance, comes pre-loaded on the Surface Pro 3 as a modern app with basic functionality, but OneNote 2013, included with Office 2013, is a much more powerful desktop app.

• Amazon Unveils Kindle Textbook Creator: Today, Amazon announced it’s releasing a new initiative that will make it easier for teachers and educators to get their materials onto Kindle products and apps. Called Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) EDU, it’s designed to help publish, prepare and promote educational content for students across Amazon’s own reading products, as well as apps for mobile devices and desktop. Educators can easily turn PDFs of textbooks and course materials into ebooks, for instance. Books made using the Kindle Textbook Creator include nifty features such as multi-color highlighting, a notebook to keep track of passages and images and flashcards to keep track of important concepts from each chapter. If you’re an educator, you can get started with the beta version of the tool today.

• Rdio Is Coming To 24 New Countries: Last week, Rdio launched its music streaming service in India. Now, it’s kicking its global expansion up a gear, debuting in 24 new countries, reports VentureBeat. Through a deal with mobile carrier Digicel, Rdio will reach 14 million subscribers in countries across Central America, Asia-Pacific and the Caribbean. The move brings Rdio to 85 markets in total.