Swiggy may rack up more funds
What's the news?
Food delivery app Swiggy is in talks with South Korean funds including Korea Investment Partners, Mirae Asset Management, STIC Investments, and Neoplux to stitch up a $500 million financing round, said two people aware of the development. The round is learnt to be led by the company's largest investor South African internet giant Naspers with the valuation expected to hit $4 billion from $3.3 billion earlier.
Why does it matter?
This move comes at a time when Swiggy is locked in a discounting war with rival Zomato, both of which are clocking about a million orders a day and have been burning up to $40-50 million monthly to acquire users in a cash-guzzling sector that has been reliant on discounting to ratchet up growth.
Swiggy is also seeking to scale up its services beyond food delivery, which includes a concierge-like service Swiggy Stores, subscription-based homestyle meals offering Swiggy Daily, and a cloud kitchen business under Swiggy Access. Read more.
SoftBank-Piramal potential deal
What's the news?
SoftBank's potential investment into the financial services arm of the Piramal Group will likely depend on the Indian company’s willingness to aggressively move into the consumer finance segment away from its current wholesale focus, two people in the know of the matter said.
SoftBank’s final decision to back the Mumbai-based group will hinge on splitting its retail and wholesale books and adding a technology layer to the business, people familiar with the detailed discussions between the two parties said, on the condition of anonymity.
Why is SoftBank eyeing Piramal investment?
SoftBank has been keen to plough capital to leverage on consumer lending in India, after seeing the exponential growth of Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba where the Japanese conglomerate is an early investor.
SoftBank’s interest in Piramal’s business, with no underlying technology, stems from its bullishness about the overall financial services and consumer lending sector.
Rajeev Misra, who heads SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund, had told ET in an exclusive interview last week that financial services was the biggest multiplier of Gross Domestic Product in any economy, but it was broken in India. Read more.
Bengaluru, Delhi Customs crackdown on 'gift' parcels
What's the news?
Courier terminals at Bengaluru and Delhi have stopped clearing parcels being shipped through the 'gift' route, roughly six months after Mumbai Customs took similar action, stopping the flow of e-commerce shipments from Southeast Asia and China which were being wrongly declared as ‘gifts’ to evade duties. The customs port at Chennai is also considering similar action, senior customs officials confirmed to ET.
What's the significance?
The government might finally be working on a way to stop Chinese e-commerce sellers from masquerading shipments to Indian customers as "gifts and samples" that attract zero duties. India currently allows individuals to receive free samples and gifts up to Rs 5,000 in value via courier without paying any duties. There is, however, no cap on the number of gifts an individual can receive, which overseas e-commerce vendors have exploited.
Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) is considering amending this rule to cap the number of gifts an individual can receive from abroad. The Revenue Department is also considering a bigger amendment to the customs laws. Read more.
Apple to stop sales of low-priced smartphones
What's the news?
Apple has taken four of its 'lower priced' smartphones off the shelves in India, making it more expensive to buy an entry-level iPhone, as part of the company's new strategy to focus on driving value in the country instead of chasing volumes.
Why is this important?
This decision comes after Apple improved its revenue and profit in India in 2018-19, even though iPhone sales volumes took a hit, with the focus more on pushing the latest and higher-priced models. An industry executive said Apple India's sales in the April-June quarter had gone up after it undertook a promotion to drop iPhone XR prices.
Earlier, Apple had also reduced the number of distributors in India to two from five last year and decided to rein in arbitrary discounts to reinforce the brand's premium. Read more.
India plans an electronics exports hub
What's the news?
A high-level panel set up by the Prime Minister's Office has sought inputs from over a dozen global companies, including Apple, Samsung and Intel, on what they need to make India their production base and an electronics export hub, underlining New Delhi's aggressive push to attract foreign investment by wooing manufacturers away from China.
What has it done so far?
The PMO panel is working out a report on how to ease our domestic policies and wean these companies away to India as soon as possible. The panel is of the opinion that the thrust of electronics exports has to be on smartphones, a person familiar with the discussions told ET. The country sees the Sino-US trade tensions as a window of opportunity to offer itself as an attractive base for manufacturing and exports. Read more.