ETtech Morning briefing: Reliance Jio startup investments, Xiaomi price hike, Low salary increments & more

1. Low salary increments here to stay

What's the news?

Professionals who work in the IT services sector have taken to the social media to complain about low salary increments but the trend is here to stay, according to compensation experts.

Employers will rely more on one-off monetary rewards, annual cash payouts, and bonuses to reward talent because of the squeeze on salary increment budgets, they said. Lump sum payouts mean that base salaries don’t change much from year to year.

What do the numbers say?

The IT sector, which has gone through upheaval in recent times, was projected to pay an average hike of 9.5% in 2018. Third-party IT services, which provide the bulk of the jobs in the sector, are projecting an average hike of 6.2%, according to the annual Aon India Consulting salary increment survey.

Annual salary increments across sectors were projected at 9.4% on average, according to the Aon survey of more than 1,000 companies across 20 industries.

The survey had outlined that the focus on performance is getting sharper with each successive year. Top performers are likely to get an average salary increase of 15.4%, about 1.9 times that for an average performer, according to the survey.

2. More investments on the cards for Reliance Jio

What's the news?

Reliance Jio, the Mukesh Ambani-promoted company, is scouting for more investments following two transactions in April as it seeks to create a comprehensive ecosystem of digital products and services around its core telecom service.

What's the plan?

The unit of the Rs 6.11 lakh crore Reliance Industries (RIL) wants to invest in or acquire ventures operating in the content, healthcare, education technology, financial technology, and transportation segments, according to people ET spoke with.

Jio may also consider scooping up product technology ventures, particularly those operating in the still-nascent artificial intelligence and machine learning spaces, they said.

3. Housejoy has laid off more than 40 employees

What's the news?

Housejoy, an online platform offering various at-home services, has laid off more than 40 employees across departments to check spiralling cost structures at a time of slow revenue growth, industry insiders said.

Who all have lost jobs?

Several of the exits have been at mid-management levels across its digital marketing, technical and back-end operations teams, they said. The layoffs come even as the Amazon-backed startup is looking to trim or shut down categories that offer little or no unit margins such as specialised lifestyle and health services.

4. Xiaomi increases prices of its best sellers

What's the news?

Chinese handset maker Xiaomi is increasing prices of its Redmi Note 5 Pro smartphone by 1,000 and of its Mi TV (55 inch) by 5,000, following the imposition of 10% duty on imports of populated printed circuit boards, camera modules, and connectors, and depreciation of the rupee.

Will it affect already placed orders?

The company, which became the first among its peers to increase prices, said on Monday that orders placed before the increase will be delivered at earlier prices. It expects PCB supplies for smartphones to normalise by the July-September quarter when its local assembly plant works at full capacity to produce the key component, which makes up about half the cost of the device.