Daily News Digest- 5th Aug'14

Thought of the Day:

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Following made the Headlines:

India:

• Micromax topples Samsung as India’s top handset maker: India’s mobile handset market, of about 20 million units a month, saw two major changes that overturned the pecking order in this year’s April- June quarter. While home- grown Micromax, for the first time, elbowed out Korean giant Samsung to become the firm selling the highest number of handsets in the country, Motorola’s gamble of taking the exclusive e- commerce route for its India re- entry with the Moto G, six months ago, struck gold in the smartphone segment. According to Hong Kongbased Counterpoint Technology Market Research, in the April-June period, Micromax’s share of the overall handset market (smartphones, feature phones, and low- cost handsets) stood at 16.6 per cent, while Samsung settled for 14.4 per cent. Nokia was relegated to the third spot with a 10.9 per cent share, while Karbonn’s share was 9.5 per cent and Lava’s 5.6 per cent.

• It's Raining Discounts & Flash Sales at Hotels: These days it's not just online retailers Flipkart and Amazon or airlines that are offering flash sales and deep discounts. Hotels, too, are vying with each other for guests with a range of packages aimed at lifting occupancy in the current lean season. The Hyatt hotels in India not only offer a 50% discount across all 19 properties, they even have a flash sale with lower rates in some cities. The Carlson Rezidor group is offering a flat 30% discount on bar rates at its 66 properties in India for bookings till the end of the year. Hilton is giving customers a 20% discount for weekend stays, while the Marriott is offering 25% off at select properties or an additional night free on booking two nights. Mid-market chain Lemon Tree Hotels, in which Warburg Pincus is an investor, is trying to lure guests with a 100% money-back scheme through redeemable vouchers and budget hotel Premier Inn is offering discounts to repeat customers. Hilton's weekend stay offer is valid until December 31, says Daniel Welk, VP , operations, India. “It's more of an aspirational initiative and pans across weekends like Diwali, Christmas and New Year. We didn't want to have a limited time-frame offer which extended over just a few weeks, so we decided to run this campaign till the end of the year,“ says Welk. In addition, discounts on food and beverages and free Internet should help new customers to keep coming back, he says. Typically, hotels in India have low occupancy in the summer, from May till the end of October, and they attempt to make up for the lower numbers in this lean season with discounts and freebies.

• Samsung dealers threaten boycott over e-pricing: As it grapples with depleting market share, Samsung Electronics -the world's biggest mobile-phone maker by shipments -has got itself in more trouble as hundreds of Samsung dealers across the country have threatened to boycott the company's products over pricing concerns. The dealers said that they would stop stocking Samsung phones unless the South Korean tech giant takes steps to narrow the wide gap in pricing between its phones sold at various multibrand outlets and on e-commerce sites. “How can the company expect us to meet targets when customers can buy its phones online at huge discounts? Samsung gives us a 5.5% margin, while the same phones are being sold online at 2030% discount,“ said Sunil Arora, a Samsung phone dealer in the Capital. Arora said that around 300 dealers have joined the movement, mainly due to drummed-up support through Facebook and WhatsApp, and the number is growing.

• Karbonn Dials Japan to Boost Battery Life: When Sudhir Hasija, the chairman of Indian smartphone brand Karbonn, found that his phone was constantly running out of battery, he decided to dial his contacts in Japan — a country known for its technology research prowess. With a Japanese contract researcher who has been paid close to $5,00,000 (. `2 crore), Hasija is developing a battery that is twice as powerful and thinner than any other smartphone battery, marking the beginning of what could be a trend that is likely to be a key to the survival of low-cost phone vendors. “The battery will be exclusively used for Karbonn phones,” said Hasija. It is likely to push his costs up, but the increasing cry for longerlasting batteries from customers has become difficult to ignore.

• Flipkart CEO wanted to be a gamer, Snapdeal chief a food and film critic: Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, the nowfamous founders of Flipkart, had closelylinked career aspirations in case this startup did not happen. In fact, the five founders - four of them Bansals ( not related to each other) - of the top- three ecommerce companies ( Flipkart, Myntra and Snapdeal) said they had alternative ambitions chalked out. What would they have done in life, if Flipkart didn’t happen? To that question posed by Business Standard, Flipkart chief executive officer ( CEO) Sachin Bansal said he would have wanted to become a professional gamer. Software engineer and chief operating officer ( COO) of Flipkart Binny Bansal’s reply was not far off: “ I would have liked to build computer games.” Flipkart’s Bansals, both 32, now valued together at an estimated $ 1 billion, did many things together. They were classmates at Indian Institute of Technology ( IIT) Delhi and founding the online bookstore, now a diversified e- commerce company Another well- known Bansal in the e- commerce space, Mukesh Bansal, 38, a computer science engineer from IIT Kanpur who founded fashion portal Myntra, now acquired by Kunal Bahl, 30, CEO and cofounder of Snapdeal, another leading e- commerce company, would have opted to become “ a Bahl’s long- time friend and co- founder and COO of Snapdeal, Rohit Bansal, also 30, however, pointed out: “ If not Snapdeal, we would have been running some other business. The entrepreneur ‘ keeda’ ( worm) existed in us since childhood,” said Rohit.

• Avon India appoints R M Sirbu as Managing Director: Avon India, part of global beauty and cosmetics company Avon, today said it has appointed Romulus Marian Sirbu as its Managing Director. Sirbu's appointment would be effective from July 7, 2014, Avon India said in a statement.12 years. Eventually he became Country Manager for Moldova and Serbia and Montenegro and then moved out for a brief period. He would be responsible for the strategic growth and sustainable increase of Avon's market share here, it further added.

• Gionee Eyes $1 b in India Revenue Next Fiscal Year: China-based Gionee is targeting $1 billion (₹ 6,100 crore) of revenue in India next fiscal year, encouraged by increasing sales of its smartphone here. The company posted ₹ 520 crore revenue in the first quarter of the ongoing financial year that started in April, head of India operations Arvind Vohra told ET. “If there’s a tailwind, the revenue should become higher. We are expecting ₹ 3,000-3,500 crore by end of this (fiscal) year and aim to become a $1-billion company by end of FY16,” he said. The company has a monthly marketshare of 3% in the country, according to market research firm Gfk. “We are expecting 4% yearly marketshare by the end of this year,” Vohra said.

• Air India to shut all city booking offices by Oct 1: Air India plans to close its 64 city booking offices in the country by October 1. Saddled with rising losses, the governmentowned airline is reviewing the viability of its offices in 46 foreign cities. “The city office in Madurai has been closed. There is no need to maintain physical infrastructure for ticketing, cancellation and refund when most airlines are aggressively using the web. It has been decided to close all city booking offices by October 1,” said an Air India executive. “Ticketing and marketing are more cost- effective if we spruce our site. We estimate saving ₹ 18 crore a year in rent and salaries by shutting the offices.” Air India has 46 offices abroad, a fifth in cities to where the airline does not fly like Washington, Toronto, Los Angeles, Cairo, Teheran, Vienna, Amsterdam and Chittagong. Despite recommendations from a section of the management to close these, the airline has said these had been set up to cater to the diaspora.

• Hidesign accuses Woodland for infringing copyright laws by copying its designs: Hidesign, an upscale leather goods brand based in Pondicherry, has sent a legal notice to Woodland, accusing the shoes and accessories maker of infringing copyright laws by copying one of its popular designs. Hidesign has alleged that Woodland blatantly copied the design of Vespucci, a rugged leather cross shoulder sling bag for men that is one of its bestseller models. The bag was created in early 2011 by Fabian Lintott, Hidesign's London-based designer. "We have filed a legal complaint against Woodland few days ago," said Dilip Kapur, founder of Hidesign.

• Amazon India launches pet supplies category: Amazon.in is continuing to add new categories. Just days after the company announced $2 billion (Rs 12,200 crore) investment for its India operations, Amazon.in has launched its 29th category--pet supplies. On average the site has launched two categories a month since it launched India operations in June last year. While so far Amazon.in has focused on larger segments like books, electronics, fashion and lifestyle, in the past couple of months it has expanded its portfolio of products to more niche and value-added segments. In July, the company launched its own gift cards, powered by Bangalore-based gift card technology startup QwikCilver. Amazon.in's launch of pet supplies is interesting as few of the other marketplaces have a presence in this area. Flipkart for instance does not sell any pet supplies. Snapdeal does sell products like pet accessories, but under the larger home improvement category. However, there are a couple of online stores solely focused on pet supplies.

• Samsung to be setup Technical Schools in Ludhiana: The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) and Samsung announced a partnership to set up Technical Schools in MSME Technology Centres across India on Monday. Ten MSME-Samsung Technical Schools will be set up across India - one each in Ludhiana, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Aurangabad, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Varanasi. The MSME-Samsung Technical Schools will run Samsung's advanced repair and Industrial skills Enhancement (A.R.I.S.E.2) program, providing students trade-specific training on various aspects of repair and troubleshooting for consumer electronics products such as mobile phones, televisions, home theatres, home appliances and their related accessories. Students will also get real time working experience at Samsung authorized service centers. Other than technical skills, as part of the course the students will get a chance to learn soft skills which will further enable them to provide exemplary customer service.

International:

• LinkedIn in $6m labour violation settlement: LinkedIn has agreed to pay $6m (£3.6m) in wages and damages after regulators found it failed to account for all the hours worked by its employees. This includes $3.3m in unpaid wages and $2.5m in damages to be paid to 359 former and current employees. It also agreed to provide compliance training and distribute its policy on overtime work to all applicable staff. The firm said talent was its "number one priority" and it was eager to "rectify the situation". "This was a function of not having the right tools in place for a small subset of our sales force to track hours properly," said Shannon Stubo, vice president of corporate communications at LinkedIn.

• Facebook Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Alleged Privacy Violations: When it comes to Facebook, they are no stranger to lawsuits. The social networking giant was recently hit with a $123 million lawsuit over revenge porn allegations, and while they’ve yet to sort that one out, they have been hit with another one, except that this is a class action lawsuit involving more than 11,000 people. The lawsuit was started by law student, Max Schrems, who felt that Facebook had violated the privacy of its users and possibly European privacy laws in the process as well. Schrems has asked those living outside of the US and Canada to take part in the class action lawsuit, and according to TechCrunch, more than 11,000 people have signed up. According to the lawsuit, it alleges that Facebook has violated certain privacy laws, such as a data use policy which is considered invalid under the EU law; the absence of effective consent; support of the NSA’s PRISM surveillance program; tracking users through external websites (through the use of the Like button found embedded on some websites); monitoring and analysis of users; the unlawful introduction of “graph search”; and unauthorized passing of user data to external applications.

• McDonalds says China food scandal is hurting sales: The fast-food chain McDonalds has said a food scare in China and Japan is having a "significant negative impact" on sales in the region. In a statement, the company said it might not meet its sales forecast for this year as a result of the China supplier issue. The affected markets account for 10% of revenues, the company said. Last month, McDonalds suspended sales of its nuggets in Hong Kong amid concerns about a Chinese meat supplier. Its supplies came from a Chinese company, Shanghai Husi Food, whose operations have been suspended by regulators after local media reports claimed it re-processed out-of-date meat.

• Microsoft sues Samsung over Android patent fees: Microsoft is suing Samsung in a dispute over Android patent fees. Microsoft says the South Korean firm failed to pay it on schedule for the use of its inventions and has begun legal action in New York. In a blog, the US firm said Samsung had used Microsoft's takeover of Nokia's handset unit "as an excuse to breach its contract". Samsung has said: "We will review the complaint in detail and determine appropriate measures in response." The case marks the first time that Microsoft has launched legal action against Samsung. The two companies have a long-running partnership, due to the Asian manufacturer's sale of Windows PCs and Windows Phone handsets.

• P&G Plans to Sell 100 Brands, Cut Jobs in 2 Years: Procter & Gamble, the world's largest household products maker, said it could sell about half of its brands in the next 2 years and cut jobs to revive sales growth and save costs, sending its shares up as much as 4.3%. The maker of Gillette razors and Tide detergent said it would consider selling 90-100 brands whose sales have been declining for three years. P&G said the 70 to 80 “core“ brands it will focus on accounted for 90% of sales and more than 95% of profit over the past three years.

• Kmart to Launch Jillian Michaels Activewear Collection: Kmart is getting physical and going at it with one of America’s most popular fitness gurus, Jillian Michaels. The Impact by Jillian Michaels collection will launch on kmart.com Sunday and in 500 Kmart stores Aug. 17, reflecting the chain’s desire to punch up its activewear. Up to now, Kmart has taken a limited approach to activewear, with only one active line, Everlast Sport, currently on the shelves. Yet with Impact, “We see a big opportunity for this brand, this partnership and for growing our activewear business at Kmart,” said Diane Vaccaro, chief marketing officer of Kmart Apparel. Technical characteristics like wicking, stretch, reflective details, and warming and cooling properties; small to XXL sizes, and 24 styles each in a variety of colors will all be part of the package.

• Nancy Gonzalez Doubles Space at Harrods: Nancy Gonzalez, the Colombian accessories brand that specializes in exotic skins, has opened a 700-square-foot space at Harrods next to brands including Céline, Fendi and Saint Laurent — and that’s just where Santiago Barberi Gonzalez wants to be. “Harrods has understood that we are a fashion brand made out of exotic skins,” said Gonzalez, the brand’s president and creative director, as he paced around the shop floor, fine-tuning the position of a gold ombré crocodile bag, and peering at the workmanship on a vermilion one with a crocodile covered shoulder chain.

• Broken English Opens in N.Y.: To (mis)quote some famous old Brits, Laura Freedman gets by with a little help from her friends. When scouting locations for a New York outpost of her Los Angeles jewelry mecca Broken English, Freedman stumbled upon an ideal spot in the heart of SoHo. The only problem? It was already occupied. “I fell in love with Crosby Street,” Freedman said. “I was looking with a realtor and as we walked down the street, he explained why Crosby was so special. We passed a big space that was great, because it goes through Crosby and Broadway. He said, ‘That’s AllSaints.’” Fortuitously, Freedman counts Lyndon Lea, cofounder of Lion Capital, which acquired 76 percent of AllSaints in 2011, among her close friends. “The following week, I had lunch with Lyndon, and I was telling him how he had an amazing location,” she said. “He said, ‘Well, why don’t you just take the Crosby side of AllSaints. If we divided it and you took over 500 square feet, it would be used per square foot more efficiently.’ And, really, the synergy between the two brands made sense.”

• John Varvatos' Largest Store Bows in London: John Varvatos has made a bold statement with his first European store, a sprawling 10,000-square-foot flagship — his label’s largest yet — that opened on Conduit Street here on Friday. The three-story space plays to both Varvatos’ rock-inflected style — with vinyl records and vintage audio equipment for sale alongside the designer’s leather jackets in the store’s basement — and his sartorial leanings, with the sleek, light-filled second floor devoted to the brand’s tailoring offer.

• Twitter Will Soon Tell You What Hashtags Actually Mean: The Wall Street Journal says that Twitter is testing out the “easier to use” hashtags, but at the moment it’s a feature restricted only to the iOS app and only to a select number of test users. If it comes to maturity, it should reach a more widespread audience soon. If you’re part of the test group so far, when you click on some hashtags, you’ll get a four or five-word explanation of what the marker means, and also potentially sort by location or find people using the same hashtag nearby. Twitter has been running a lot of experiments on its users recently, including testing changes to the retweet system that would let users add a full 140-character comment to any tweet they were sharing with their followers, rather than including that tweet in the character count.