Golmuri » India

US: The peace maker!

rohit — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 14:39:45 +0000

world peace

In a not so surprising report, by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), US was named as the biggest exporter of weapons in the entire world. Guess who was the biggest importer? No prizes…it is China followed by India. US exports 30% of the entire world export.
The volume of imports by India and Pakistan is increasing steadily and is expected to rise for another five to ten years until they agree an a permanent solutions.
The SIPRI said combat aircraft accounted for 27 per cent of the volume of international arms transfers during 2005-2009. Orders and deliveries of these potentially destabilizing weapon systems have led to arms race concerns in the following regions of tension: the Middle East, North Africa, South America, South Asia and South East Asia. Leading peace activists are finding it difficult to control this hike in weapon transaction in spite of well established protocols and platforms for discussion. It is just like a prisoner’s dilemma! Country ‘A’ buys weapons to become stronger than ‘B’ and vice verse. Thus increasing the expenditure for both. This is because the cost of not being strong enough to counter the opponents attack is much more than spending to become strong. However, if both do not spend, both can survive without defense expenditure.Wow! so simple and yet so difficult to implement!

Rogues

Turbulence in automobile industry..

rohit — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:47:18 +0000

turbulence

After the season of recalls, it is now time for the major players to reshuffle their stakes. The reason may be the unpredicted growth in automobile sales all over the world in the month of February. The recovery of JLR sales have increased the SPI of TATA Motors which in turn triggered Daimler to sell its 5.34% stake. Daimler, also plans to enter India by investing more than Rs.4000 crores for which it had collaborated with Hero Honda. However, the deal was called off. Now, after raising cash from stake sale at TATA, Daimler might strategically enter India and other developing nations.
In another move, Suzuki has raised its stake in Maruti-Suzuki to 55%, up 0.8%. Analysts say that Suzuki might go for further increase in stake in near future. Maruti, which sells every second car in India, has established itself as the crown jewel in Suzuki’s global operations and is a rare bright spot for sales across the world. It already contributes nearly 80% of Suzuki’s profits, and in volumes too, it has eclipsed its parent’s tally. So it is wise for Suzuki to leverage on this rare asset.
As the small car market is heating up, every major motor company is planning to launch small cars, whether they have experience or not. Ford for the first time, has launched a small car ‘Figo’ targeted at middle class people of India. Honda has also launched ‘Jazz’, a small car, but at a higher price(Rs.7.21 lakh) to target the niche market by making it a limited edition car. Except Toyota every car company plans to launch new products in recent months.
These big news in the automobile market in just a month calls for an in depth analysis by investors and consumers before taking major decisions. Is it a consolidation phase, where first movers might end up as market leaders or is it time to en cash on the growing automobile industry?

Rogues

The rise of Advertisement industry

rohit — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:13:13 +0000

brand ambassador

The advertisement industry experienced drastic fall in revenues during the economic downturn last year. WPP, the world’s largest advertising company saw a fall in profits by 11% in 2009. Organizations in all major sectors in order to cut short their losses reduced the advertisement budgets handsomely. It is said that the health of the economy can be judged by the amount of advertisements. If its low then something is wrong and vice verse.
Interestingly, brand ambassadors form a very expensive, important and affective part of traditional advertisements. As an indication of good times for advertisement industries, Aamir Khan, a Bollywood star recently clinched an advertisement contract worth Rs. 35 crore which is more than double his next highest! It is not just him but other powerful and famous men have attracted similar growths in most of the developing industries. WPP in particular has grown this year because of its capability and resources to exploit the opportunities in developing nations like India, china and Brazil. The first two months of 2010 recorded business worth $2 billion which is 50% of the entire 2009 earnings. According to the PITCH-Madison Media Advertising Outlook 2010, after a tough 2009, the Indian advertising pie is expected to be worth about Rs 21,145 crore this year, a 13 per cent increase over the previous one. Happy times hmmm!
Hence, it is wise to infer that the advertisement industry is back on the growth track which would in turn fuel other industries.

Rogues

Impact of price war in telecom sector

rohit — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:44:00 +0000

victim of price war

Apart from decline in profits for telecom companies, this price war has also affected the cash rich BPO industry of India. It is seen that because of the declining profits, telcos are reorganizing their contracts with BPOs to get better price points. The cutting edge competition between the telcos have forced them cut their operating expenditures drastically.
Moreover, the volume and revenue per user has reduced against predictions because of people opting for multiple SIMs to make use of the best schemes by various service providers. As a result BPO organizations like Hinduja Global Solutions, Firstsource and others have seen significant dip in their bottom lines in the last quarter. The only party enjoying his war is the consumer. They are just enjoying!
The question is how long will this price war last? Is it time for consolidation as seen in the airline sector a year ago?

Rogues

Fashion of recalls!

rohit — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 09:15:02 +0000

The automobile companies have made it a habit to recall their vehicles or is it the season of recalls. This time it is neither Toyota nor Ford but it is India’s largest seller of passenger cars Maruti. Last year it launched its A-Star in Europe to cater to the entry segment cars. The Indian version of this car already has a big pie in the small car segment. However, the 100,000 A-Stars exported is said to have some problem with oil seals (o-rings) which failed in a number of instances.
Why so many recalls?
I think that the quality checks performed before launch of the cars are not being followed religiously or there is a loophole which is being exploited liberally or the recession has made the companies to cut cost at the cost of quality. In-spite of knowing the fact that such recalls may tarnish the brand image of the company, the companies give green flags to new models to reap the benefits of first mover advantage in respective segments. Let us hope that these organizations at least continue to own responsibilities for such debacles.

Rogues

US Securities are no more safe!

rohit — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 20:18:42 +0000

India and China, the largest developing economies of the world have decided to reduce their investments in the US government securities. The increasing level of fiscal deficit and unaccepted policies implemented in US have been some of the few reasons for its declining popularity. Once upon a time China was the single largest investor in US government securities.
‘Change is the only thing constant’ and is it beginning of the shift from Westernization to Easternization?

Rogues

World’s Cheapest mobile phone by Vodafone

rohit — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:29:21 +0000

Vodafone recently launched the world’s cheapest mobile phone ‘Vodafone 150′ which is available at less than $15! This low cost mobile has basic features including voice, SMS and has built-in support system for mobile banking. This revolutionary product is again targeted at the “Bottom of the Pyramid” just like the many nano products being launched by the TATAs. Initially this mobile will be launched in India, Turkey and eight African countries. An advanced version is also launched simultaneously for $20 with color screen and an FM.
This strategy of Vodafone will help them play with volumes rather than margins. This product has the capability to help mobile phones penetrate to the remotest of places and hence contribute in their development.

Rogues

How to send free SMS to mobile in India

admin — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:12:54 +0000

This year has seen a huge increase in people sending free SMS to mobile phones over the net instead of using the conventional SMS. It could be due to the recession and people trying to save money, people getting smarter and finding ways to get a service for free, or making the mobile connection providers something to think about. But whatever could be the reason, companies providing the free SMS facility aren’t complaining.

These companies claim that more than 45 Lakh SMS were sent on New Year’s eve. Keywords like free sms ,way2sms hit peaks in Google and were most searched during the last few days.

The free sms over a computer to a mobile is a good concept and is sure to be a hit and would especially be used by people who are online most of the time .

Here is a list of some of the websites offering the facility.

indyarocks.com

160by2.com

way2sms.com

Zino Desktops by Dell India

admin — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 09:20:35 +0000

Dell India has recently launched the new Inspiron^TM Zino HD mini desktop computer. Small on the outset, yet it is packed with all the ammunition you need. Here is a review of the Dell Zino.

Performance:Can be upgraded till 8GB of RAM and 640 GB of hard disk space . So you can run all the applications you want.

Style: The user has an option to choose from 10 different interchangeable color lids. Its small size (7.8” by 7.8”)makes it convenient to fit it in even the smallest corners of the room.

Cost:It is pretty inexpensive with the models starting for Rs 20,000 with a 18.5″ Wide screen Flat Panel Monitor,2GB SDRAM Memory, and 320 GB hard disk space.

Advanced Users:Blue ray disk available.eSATA ports for more external storage

Pros:Fairly low power consumption (~20W idle with HD spun down). Easy to take apart for upgrades (Mac Mini is a pain to open)

Cons:Noisier than it could be (fan always runs while awake and vibrations not well dampened).Build quality isn’t spectacular (you get what you pay for).Bigger than Mac Mini.

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Rising Nations and their growth drivers

rohit — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:19:05 +0000

The world economic scenario was in a turmoil for the last two years. U.S., U.K. and other developed countries like Japan were struggling to find the root cause. There is a wise saying, whenever something goes wrong look at the basics. What are the basics of economic prosperity? It is not a rocket science to divide the economic engines into Agriculture, Industrial and Services sector. Everything else come under these three pillars of economy. Finding the right balance is long term and playing with anyone is short term. It is evident that finding the right balance always takes more time than disturbing the right balance. A little push or pull in any one of the pillars would affect the entire set pillars. This is what happened everytime the world economy plunged.

However, there were few emerging nations which believed in basics of economics and regardless of the school of thought, sailed through the turmoil without toppling. India and China are among these few nations. India’s Q2 GDP growth at factor cost increased to 7.9 against the world trend. It is not surprising to see that this growth has been fueled by growth in agriculture by 1.9, Industry by 8.2 and services by 9.3. It is not that India has attained the perfect balance but it is going in the right direction. Pre slowdown India was promoted as a developing nation with the statement ‘India Shining’ and it was seen apprehensively by many. Post Slowdown again the numbers show that the shine factor has not diminished. If we try to do the SWOT analysis of India we see that their biggest strength is their population and the opportunity in services that they are exploiting goes well with their strength. Another reason for the shine factor is that the latent strengths make it sustainable. India’s large mineral deposit is still to be exploited at developed rates which would further increase the shine factor in future. Now, the threat which is bothering India is the shadow of towering debts around the world. The recent Dubai crisis and other such incidents might reduce the inflow of goodies which in turn may dampen the shine. One weakness which is acting as the biggest resistance to growth is the conflicts with its neighbors. Few years ago it had Pakistan, now it has China and Srilanka. These week links in the chain can be the biggest enemy of the shine factor.

Let us hope that the growth drivers of the world reach the balance soon.

Rogues