India Business

Auto giant General Motors India will be concentrating additionally on the North-East zone as a latest sales study carried out by them depicted that the area is likely to grow in a significant manner more than other zones in the nation. The well known US automobile manufacturer is anticipating an expansion of approximately 8% in the existing year (2013) from the North-Eastern section. At this time, the North-East zone puts in around 3% of the overall sale facts and approximately 32% of overall sale figures from the eastern area where Assam adds the big portion. As per reports, the small vehicles including the Beat and the Sail hatchback are enjoying optimistic demand in the area together with the Sail sedan. With the aim to gather additional sales in the sluggish Indian automobile business, General Motors India has already rolled out new franchisees in Nagaon and Tinsukia and shortly will be introducing latest ones at Jorhat as well as Tezpur. Mr. P Balendran, vice president (VP) of GM India stated, “North East is a significant as well as budding growth section for the company. In terms of sales, it adds around 32% of the overall sales in the Eastern area with Assam bestowing a key portion of the share.” The North East area has always been slightly behind in terms of advancement as against the rest of the nation and it seems that an augmentation in demand for vehicles has just commenced in the area It is expected that General Motors India wishes to make the most of the condition and make its attendance felt in the area and get a sturdy grip prior to its competitors. The company, which had established its initial showroom in the area in the year 2004, is also flourishing its system in the North-Eastern section. “We have freshly launched innovative showrooms in the towns such as Nagaon as well as Tinsukia. We will soon launch 2 additional new showrooms in addition to service outlets in cities such as Tezpur and Jorhat,” Balendran added up. At present, the company possesses 14 sales points and service outlets in the said zone. The firm presently owns a storehouse in the city of Guwahati with an overall capacitance of 350 vehicles. The Eastern area for the company consist of states such as Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, Sikkim, Mizoram and Meghalaya.

State-owned Dena Bank would focus on West Bengal, Haryana and Punjab by opening more branches in the three states to grow its business, a top bank official said Monday.

Mobile publishing company, MobStac has partnered with video advertising network, Vdopia’s VDOAd network. Through this partnership, MobStac intends to offer its clients with options to monetise their mobile websites and apps. Vdopia, in turn, intends to offer its clients with the option of using MobStac to create a mobile presence for themselves. The deal period or the financial details of the partnership were not disclosed. Apart from VDOAd network, MobStac also offers Google AdSense, InMobi, DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP), OpenX Enterprise, ZEDO and other third-party ad servers as advertising options to its clients. MobStac Partnerships: In December 2012, MobStac had partnered with PubMatic, digital media platform, to offer its service through PubMatic’s platform. With this partnership, MobStac’s services were to be offered through the recently launched PubLink, PubMatic’s enterprise app marketplace for premium publishers. MobStac allows web publishers including blogs and websites to convert their desktop sites into mobile optimized websites and offers HTML5 ready mobile websites and touch site for tablets apart from plugging into all major mobile ad networks and analytic tools. It also lets publishers control all their mobile apps and websites through a unified dashboard. Currently, the company offers solutions to individual web publishers and enterprises. Its enterprise publisher clients include thehindu, allafrica.com, while its individual web publisher clients include intomobile, and techtree, among others. In November 2011, the company had raised undisclosed amount of funding from Accel Partners and Mumbai Angels Vdopia Partnerships: In 2011, Vdopia had partnered with IAS-Media Digital, a media marketing group that operates in the Middle East, to allow IAS- Media to Vdopia’s video ads – pre-app, in-app and mobile web video ads on smartphones and online video products across the Middle East region. It had also partnered with NDTV to power video advertising for NDTV Profit and NDTV’s online video site Tubaah, which was shut down later. In December 2012, the company had raised $3.4 million ($3,391,862) in a series B round Vdopia’s clientele includes McDonald’s, Scion, Universal Studios, Microsoft, Sony Pictures, Wrigley and Miller Coors.  Vdopia had previously raised $4 million from Nexus Venture Partners in October 2009, following an undisclosed seed round from the same fund in December 2008.

The government is likely to remove foreign direct investment (FDI) ceilings from sectors where these are not serving any purpose, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said Monday.

Volkswagen Polo is one of the longest selling Volkswagen cars for the company. After almost 5 generations of selling its hybrids, Volkswagen has now designed a car, which it calls a Cross Polo. Cross Polo is on the lines of original Polo with vital modifications, which make it an ideal car for adventurers as well as tourists. This car is being manufactured in India by Volkswagen’s Indian subsidiary and will soon be exported to Nepal for its official launch. Volkswagen India is a subsidiary that was started in the year 2007. They have a production site in Chakan in Maharashtra, where the cars are assembled and manufactured for the Indian and neighboring markets. The reports say that Cross Polo is being manufactured in Chakan and then will be shipped to Nepal. The original Polo was first launched in 1975 and since then many new versions of the car have reached the market. The most recent model was launched in 2009 and was marked as Mark V Polo. It stands on PQ25 platform, which is also used in Audi. It has a 1.5 litre engine, that powers up the vehicle with a 105bhp. The Cross Polo is similar in terms of engine and platform. But there are some necessary modifications made, that make it a powerful off-road vehicle. The wheels are made of alloy with a diameter of 17 inches. The entire body is 14mm taller than Polo GT. Also the look of the car body is designed such that it gives a rougher look to the car making it perfect for adventurers. It is said that Cross Polo will make its entry into the market in Nepal by September 2013. Although nothing has been declared officially, but the one of the authorized Volkswagen dealers have confirmed the news. Cross Polo is estimated to be around 7 lacs on it’s launch. It might also be available in 4 cylinder, diesel engine models having a capacity of 1.5 litres similar to TDI based Polo.

Groupon has announced that it has entrusted the current Indian senior management team with additional responsibilities dealing with growth in emerging markets in Asia Pacific. In addition to India, the Groupon India team will now focus on developing and expanding their platform in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. Ankur Warikoo who is currently the CEO of Groupon India, has been handed the additional responsibility of Groupon APAC Emerging Markets. Bharath Devanathan has also been made the COO of the Emerging Markets group. Sumeet Kapur who was the CFO of the Indian operations till now has been named as the Regional Finance Director in charge of these markets. Groupon is happy with the work of its Indian team over the last 2 years and believes that it can also drive the adoption and growth of the service throughout the APAC region. Joel Neoh, IVP, Groupon APAC spoke about the development, “India is a key market for Groupon and has been one of the fastest growing countries in the APAC region. The leadership team in India has played an instrumental role in making Groupon the undisputed industry leader within a period of two years. This reorganisation will only make us work closer, tighter and more unified than ever in APAC, towards building a great global company . I wish them success in their new role.” Times have not been easy for Groupon since its IPO more than a year ago. Since then, Groupon’s founder and former CEO, Andrew Mason was made to leave the company. This development hints that Groupon India (formerly Crazeal) is now running in a stable manner. We cannot yet comment on how the company is doing globally. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? - Contact WATConsult - India's Leading Social Media Agency

Online travel portal Go-Ibibo has released data regarding the state of online bus bookings in the country. The study is based on data sourced from its consumers’ booking habits. According to the data insights, more than 50% of online booking of bus tickets seem unplanned, signalling towards an immediate bus ticket purchase nature among consumers. 32% of it is on the day of the travel (Last Minute) and 24% is one day prior to travel.  The chief aspects contributing to this growth story are Real time inventory being made available online from thousands of Bus suppliers and consolidators; Price and price comparison;  convenience of booking on mobile and PC. Additionally, the availability of luxury buses companies like Volvo and Mercedes too seems to have boosted online bus ticket sales. The study also highlighted the sales of online bus tickets specifically by region. While Bangalore-Hyderabad-Bangalore (10% of the bookings) sector tops the list, closely following regions are Chennai-Bangalore ; Pune-Hyderabad; Bangalore-Vijaywada. On the other hand 55% of bookings comes from a massive long tail of 10000+ sectors. The report also throws light on the types of bus services chosen for online booking i.e. 72% buses booked online are AC with an average price of Rs. 899. However, 28% buses booked are Non-AC with an average price of Rs. 399. Women’s safety too is a concern that determines online bus booking ticket sales: Ladies seats were a hit among consumers looking to book bus tickets through the online medium. Goibibo was launched in September 2009 and is now one of the top 3 online travel e-commerce platform in India. GoIbibo launched their iOS and Android apps for bus booking. Travel portals like GoIbibo have been cashing in on the bus booking sector, as luxury bus travel is a sector not hit by the economic slowdown at any time. A host of Indian travel portals have sprung up in the bus booking scene, the most prominent being RedBus which possibly get acquired soon. Needless to say, there’s a lot of competition, and I believe these services need to offer something ground-breaking in order to lead the pack. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? - Contact WATConsult - India's Leading Social Media Agency

Telecom regulatory Authority of India(TRAI) said it would allow carriers to offer free nationwide mobile roaming to subscribers for a fixed fee from July 1. It has said there will be no complete reduction from roaming charges as such. “TRAI has reduced ceilings for national roaming calls and SMS and instituted a new regime for providing flexibility to telecom service providers to customise tariffs for national roamers through STVs (Special Tariff Vouchers) and Combo Vouchers,” the regulator said in a statement. Starting July 1, 2013, ceilings for national roaming calls and SMS will be a reduced – Re 1 per minute for outgoing local calls and Rs 1.50 per minute for outgoing STD calls on national roaming, against Rs 1.40 per minute and Rs 2.40 per minute, respectively. The ceiling on incoming calls on roaming have been cut to  75 paise/minute from Rs 1.75 earlier, while outgoing local SMS will cost Rs 1 and outgoing STD SMS will cost Rs 1.50 from July 1. “With increased subscribers and usage, the costs associated with national roaming have declined, but not vanished. There are still real costs incurred in providing the national roaming facility.” “Mandating a fully free roaming regime is simply not practicable at this juncture. Compelling a transition to a fully free national roaming regime would result in telecom service providers not being able to recover their costs from roamers,” the regulator said. Trai has decided that STVs and Combo Vouchers which were as of now allowed only for home tariffs can be permitted for roaming tariffs. This will provide service providers with innumerable flexibility options with their pricing options. Also, TRAI has directed telcos to offer special plans for subscribers on roaming. The consumer will now be able to choose between full roaming and partly roaming service plans. The move is quite significant, but I definitely don’t understand why the Indian telecom industry hasn’t quite matured when it comes to consumerism. When consumers want no roaming charges, they mean that lcacl charges should equal those applied on roaming, which is not what TRAI seems to have worked towards. TRAI should look at EU, which is in the final stages of abolishing roaming charges. Source | Tech2 Looking For A Social Media Agency?? - Contact WATConsult - India's Leading Social Media Agency

According to rumors doing the rounds of the Silicon Valley blog circuit, Instagram will be launching its video sharing capabilities on June 20th at a Facebook ‘Big Ideas’ press event. Although clear details are yet to be received, Techcrunch notes that their anonymous source has confirmed the news and its launch at the press event. Facebook has also been rumored to be working on a feed reading (RSS) service, now that Google Reader is nearing the date of its impending demise.   If the news is true, it can be seen that Facebook is actively attacking many areas in a bid to drive up the usage and thus the dependability on Facebook’s platform. Video sharing would make sense for Instagram because that is the logical growth for a platform like that. Also, since Instagram will sooner or later be integrated deeper into Facebook’s platform, it makes sense for their photo product to also have video sharing features so as to complete the feature gap. Facebook and Twitter were more or less head to head when it came to social media and sharing innovations but Twitter took the lead when it debuted Vine first for iOS and then for Android. Vine has been seeing good traction and also has been hailed as new tool for citizen journalism and also as an outlet for creativity. Facebook, will understandably not want to be left behind and is now looking to ‘copy’ successful features from Twitter onto their platform. The first instance of this inspired feature set was the simplification of the default timeline coupled with graph search which adapts easily to mobile. The next bit was Facebook adding #hashtags in a bid to index content on its platform in a better way. Vine recently surged ahead of Instagram in terms of the number of shares on Twitter. This new feature may get it back on top although I am not very sure about it yet. Instagram has a good user base and that should definitely factor in. Source | Techcrunch Looking For A Social Media Agency?? - Contact WATConsult - India's Leading Social Media Agency

WeChat , the mobile messaging platform is apparently within the crosshairs of Indian Intelligence Bureau (IB) as the body has proposed banning the same. The internet dependent smartphone based messaging platform is quite similar to immensely popular rival Whatsapp. The intelligence tracking & monitoring authority feels that proliferation of such a service is a threat to National Security. In fact based on an internally circulated note, Deputy National Security Advisor Nehchal Sandhu has asked IB to discuss about the ban with the Home Ministry and the Department of Telecom (DoT).  “Blocking access to such websites in accordance with the licensing conditions governing Internet service providers is one way of checking them,” the country’s internal intelligence agency pointed out at the second meeting of the Inter-Agency Operational Working Group on June 4. Why is IB threatening a shut-down to WeChat? Based on the aforementioned premonition, IB hasn’t clarified why it feels WeChat alone should face a ban. It operates on the exact same principles that Whatsapp, Viber & others follow. All these internet based messaging platforms make use of the unique mobile number as registration & as the users’ handle as well. This ensures that the content exchanged is always tied to an identifying entity that can be tracked down in the event of National Security. The Government may want to ban WeChat in particular, mainly because it is Chinese in origin. In the past, India & other countries have seen an alarming increase in the hacking & unlawful entries by Chinese Nationals. In fact, there appear to be many theories that claim China deploys hackers to break into foreign national’s secure databases. When we first heard about WeChat entering the Indian market, we expressed doubts along the same lines. Here is a link to that piece. While this ban may be a fairly new concept, messaging companies like BlackBerry’s BBM have been facing a lot of heat from Indian as well as Middle Eastern Authorities to share their database. While eventually BlackBerry did relent & opened up a server in India, can’t Indian Government insist the same to WeChat? We would love to hear your thoughts on this particular development. Let us know in the comments. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? - Contact WATConsult - India's Leading Social Media Agency