Tag: flipkart

Tech: Links for 17th December, 2019

Five articles from The Ken today.

This is not, by any means, either an endorsement or a recommendation to subscribe to The Ken, neither do I have any contacts at this website. I have been a subscriber for a while now (though not yet a paying one), and I wanted to share a selection of their free articles to acquaint you with their write-ups, their business, and to familiarize you some alternative business models in the world of media.

  1. On the food delivery plastic problem (menace?) in India.
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    “Aggregators are stuck in an awkward spot between arbitrary regulations on plastic containers, and a partner network that, at best, is extremely heterogeneous in its attitude towards reducing plastic waste at source. The lack of suitable alternatives makes the job even harder. By Zomato’s own account, plastic waste from online food delivery adds almost 22,000 metric tonnes to India’s garbage pile every month, most of which, they admit, is dumped sans recycling.”
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  2. “The Indian grocery market is currently a $400-$500 billion market, according to Ankur Pahwa, head of e-commerce and consumer internet at advisory services firm EY. However, says Pahwa, the penetration of e-commerce in this space is just 0.5% at the moment because of the supply chain challenges involved. Despite this, Pahwa predicts the share of online groceries will double by 2021.”
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    Cracking the un-crackable: dealing with groceries and hyperlocal deliveries in India.
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  3. What’s bugging TrueCaller? No excerpts: read the whole thing! Also, yes, I have uninstalled the app after reading this.
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  4. “Tesla’s hardly the only one powering the shift to lithium. Battery-makers like Korea’s LG Chem, China’s BYD and CATL, as well as Japan’s Panasonic are doubling down on lithium-ion battery production to capture the world’s largest electric vehicle (EV) market in China.

With a mission to electrify 30% of its vehicles by 2025, what share does India have of this global, lucrative and largely Asian manufacturing pie?

Currently, zero.”
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On trying to understand why India doesn’t have a gigafactory yet – and might not in the near future, with a short concluding section on how to make the best of what is a bad situation.
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5. “Hotstar’s watershed moment came in May 2019, when it broke its own global record of 10.3 million concurrent viewers. 18.6 million watched the final game of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament during the weekend of 11-12 May. It shattered the record again in July when 25.3 million tuned in to watch India take on New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup semi-final.

But its appeal isn’t just sports. Hotstar has given viewers major titles like Game of Thrones—which it said was its most popular show in 2019—and blockbuster films like Marvel’s Avengers: End Game.”
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On understanding Hotstar better.

EC101: Links for 24th October, 2019

Five articles about spends during the festive season in India this year:

  1. “Whether government stimulus packages announced so far will have an impact on festive consumption is a big question. An even bigger question is whether consumers, who are coping with flat-lining incomes and a poor job market, will respond to the incentives offered by companies. If this Diwali fails to sparkle in terms of consumption demand growth, outlook for the next few quarters will get much gloomier.”
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    The ET explains the importance of the Diwali season sales for India’s economy. A useful set of charts.
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  2. “Sawai Makwana, 41, who runs a hair salon and a cafe in Jaipur, is a worried man. This will be my worst Diwali in nearly 30 years, he says. A third-generation hair stylist, Makwana says his business took its first hit in 2016, as a result of demonetisation. Matters have grown progressively worse since he has been forced to close down a section of his salon and sack 14 of his 16 employees. Male customers, who would spend an average of Rs 2,500, have either stopped coming or now just ask for a basic haircut that costs Rs 300, he laments.”
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    Always (always!) be wary of biased sampling and poorly researched articles – but here’s an article from India Today about the same topic.
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  3. TechCrunch on how Amazon and Flipkart are dealing with the crisis.
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  4. On the growth in Tier 2, 3 and 4 towns and how they impact these sales.
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  5. And circling back to the ET, early reports seem to indicate that things weren’t quite as bad as was being feared.