< Back DMart adds highest ever number of stores in Q4 FY2024 8 Apr 2024 By 2025, DMart’s target market size is expected to rise to $2.3 trillion and its market share to 5% from the existing 1%. By March-end, DMart announced a new line-up of stores across the country, an increase of 13% annually. Its revenue spiked 20% year-on-year to ₹12,393 crores, with a 7% increase in revenue per store and a 5% jump in revenue per square foot. DMart offers low prices brought in by lower operating costs and quick inventory turnover. First, it buys in bulk from its suppliers at heavy discounts. It offers a quick payback cycle of approximately 7-9 days, compared to the average 30 days in the retail industry. Moreover, opening a group of stores in the same region reduces transportation costs and attracts better deals. Second, DMart doesn’t rent; it buys its properties, thus removing rental expenditures. It doesn’t spend much on marketing; instead, it uses word of mouth. Its focus on affordable pricing further strengthens its position in the FMCG domain. Source: Market Brew by Tata Fintech Previous Next

< Back Govt to set up 25,000 Graphics Processing Units clusters worth ₹10k crores Ishita Nigam 4 Oct 2023 The move will assist AI-driven startups who need GPUs to process multiple computations simultaneously. To assist AI-driven Indian startups, the government plans to set up 25,000 Graphics Processing Units (GPU) cluster costing between ₹8,000-10,000 crores. GPUs help in complex computations for AI processing and are hard to find and expensive for these startups. The move will help these companies scale operations and secure better funding. Several AI-driven startups often petitioned the government to increase compute capacity, which refers to the software and hardware available to support AI workloads and applications. The new cluster will manifest as a Public-Private Partnership and the capacity offered to startups as a service. The proposal for the 25,000 GPU cluster will be finalised by year end. Global supercomputers run on 30,000 GPUs, while India’s supercomputer, Airawat, installed in the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Pune, has 640 GPUs. The latest partnership between American giant Nvidia, Reliance Jio, and Tata Sons is expected to boost compute capacity in India. Previous Next

< Back Privacy, efficacy concerns haunt One Nation, One Student ID (APAAR) 4 Feb 2025 APAAR (Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry) is a unique 12-digit ID given to students to store and manage their academic records. The Education Ministry oversees the APAAR ID scheme, launched in October. It is a student’s permanent digital ID, integrated with the Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) scheme, to store academic records and make them readily available across PAN-India institutions. Creating a minor’s APAAR ID requires parental consent. The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act mandates verifying that the individual identifying as the parent is an adult. It is done by voluntarily providing identity and age details using virtual tokens issued by the central or state government and available via Digilocker. Privacy concerns surround how parental consent is obtained and the security of student records. While creating an APAAR ID is voluntary, parents feel forced to comply by institutions. Earlier, teachers used their own mobile numbers to meet deadlines for students’ Aadhaar enrolment. Now, linking them with students’ APAAR IDs, or convincing sceptical parents to share OTPs is a challenge. Never miss another post from SalestorrsNews150. Follow Salestorrs on WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, and Instagram. Previous Next

< Back Aditya Birla Group launches jewellery brand Indriya 29 Jul 2024 Novel Jewels will be the company behind the brand name Indriya. Aditya Birla Group plans to invest ₹5,000 crore in the business. Entering the race with Reliance Jewels, Tata Group’s Tanishq, and other brands like Senco and Kalyan Jewellers, Aditya Birla Group launched its own jewellery brand, Indriya, on July 26th. On July 27th, it opened four stores across Delhi, Jaipur, and Indore. The group plans to expand to 11 more cities in six months. The brand is offering 15,000 jewellery pieces crafted by 3500 artisans. The brand will refresh its stock every 45 days, bringing in new designs. Its stores are expected to be up to 40% bigger than other national brands. Sandeep Kohli and Dilip Gaur will be the CEO and the Director. The Indian jewellery retail market is worth around ₹6.7 lakh crore, of which 65% is unorganised. This includes over 500,000 jewellers and goldsmiths; local players and national brands comprise the remaining 35%. The market is expected to grow to around ₹13 lakh crore by 2030. Previous Next

< Back Google Pay to expand UPI services for int’l travellers 18 Jan 2024 Google has signed an MoU with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to expand UPI payment services for Indians travelling abroad. Google India Digital Services signed an MoU with NPCI so Google Pay can offer UPI services to Indians travelling abroad. The agreement also allows Google to develop a UPI-like system in other countries to facilitate seamless transactions. The partnership will allow foreign remittances to other countries easier through UPI. It will promote UPI services worldwide and enable global brands to access Indian buyers who are currently restricted to credit and forex cards and foreign currency. It will also allow foreign nationals travelling to India to pay easily through Google Pay’s UPI. In Jan 2023, NPCI extended UPI services to mobile numbers from ten countries, including the UK, USA, Canada, Singapore, UAE, Qatar, Australia, Hong Kong, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. Non-resident accounts like NRO and NRE linked to international mobile numbers from these countries can transact with UPI. PhonePe also started supporting UPI transactions in Singapore, UAE, Nepal, Bhutan, and Mauritius. Previous Next

< Back Chinese AI entrant sends US stock markets crashing 28 Jan 2025 DeepSeek, a Chinese AI chatbot, performed better than ChatGPT with fewer resources. DeepSeek, founded by Liang Wenfeng in May 2023, specialises in efficient and affordable open source large language models (LLMs). Open sourcing makes it available to researchers and developers. It has two models DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1. DeepSeek uses Reinforcement Learning (RL), allowing its models to comprehend and improve more efficiently. Its models were built using 50,000 Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) compared to OpenAI’s 500,000 GPUs. DeepSeek’s cost-effective offerings caused the US tech indices to lose around $1 trillion. Nvidia’s stocks plummeted by 17% on Monday, and the company lost $589 billion in one day, the biggest single-day loss to a US company ever. Nvidia saw a meteoric rise in net profits from $4.8 billion in 2022 to $66.7 billion in 2024 mainly due to its GPUs that sell for $25,000 per piece. DeepSeek’s model used Nvidia’s GPUs for training. With this, Apple became the most valuable company globally again. Never miss another post from SalestorrsNews150. Follow Salestorrs on WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, and Instagram. Previous Next

< Back Cipla to market and distribute insulin inhalation drug 23 Dec 2024 Cipla received regulatory approval from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) for exclusive marketing and distribution. Afrezza is the only non-injectable powdered insulin for type 1 and 2 diabetes mellitus patients. MannKind Corporation USA created the drug and received FDA approval in June 2014. Cipla will procure Afrezza from MannKind and distribute and market it in India. Sanofi bought worldwide marketing and distribution rights in 2016 but dropped due to poor sales. Afrezza is a rapid-action insulin deliverable through an inhaler at the beginning of a meal. Taken orally, it begins working within 12 minutes and dissolves quickly into the lungs, delivering insulin directly to the bloodstream. It helps reduce the spike in post-meal blood sugar levels. The effect lasts 2-3 hours and resembles the body’s response to insulin. Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, and Sanofi currently control the insulin market in India. Insulin costs between ₹1,000 - ₹5,000, with a single injection available for around ₹150. Afrezza’s price is yet to be determined. Previous Next

< Back Star India ends $1.5 billion ICC TV rights deal with Zee 2 Aug 2024 On March 14, Star filed arbitration proceedings against Zee Entertainment in the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA). The termination of the Sony deal opened the floodgates for Zee Entertainment. As an independent channel, Zee wouldn’t have been able to service the International Cricket Council (ICC) TV rights deal with Star India. Consequently, it did not go ahead with the four-year alliance it had signed with Star on August 26, 2022, for the period of 2024-27. Zee maintains that the alliance was subject to some conditions, including financial commitments, bank and corporate guarantees, and approval from ICC for the sub-licensing deal. It is seeking a refund of ₹69 crore it has already paid Star on the grounds that the latter failed to secure necessary approvals from ICC, thus renouncing the contract. Over the past few months, Star has sent several letters to Zee alleging a breach of contract due to non-payment of dues. The first instalment was supposed to be $203.56 million. Previous Next

< Back Point of Sale service provider Worldline to offer payment services in India Ishita Nigam 27 Sept 2023 The approximately $8 billion company has been tying up with Indian banks for decades but has started acquiring its own merchants to offer payment services in India. French service provider Worldline has partnered with banks in India for more than two decades to install Android Point of Sale (PoS) devices in over 500,000 merchant outlets. But now it plans to join the bandwagon of payment services in the country. Worldline has started partnering directly with merchants like grocery stores, chemists, restaurants, and other retailers to offer online payment services. It plans to begin offering offline payments, which may need a fresh license as per RBI guidelines. It is also contemplating becoming a third party payment app on UPI interface. Worldline received an in-principle approval from RBI in December 2022 to become a payment aggregator. It partnered with Indian retail technology provider SignCatch in April 2023 to enroll 100,000 MSMEs within three months of launch. It will compete with players like Paytm, PhonePe, and Pine Labs. Worldline will serve the Indian market craving more omnichannel payment solutions. Previous Next

< Back Microsoft introduces agentic AI model Magma 21 Feb 2025 It combines language and visual processing to control software and robotic systems. Microsoft’s Magma can process multimodal data like texts, images, and videos and act on it. That’s irrespective of whether it is navigating a user interface, like clicking buttons and filling forms or manipulating physical objects, like commanding a robot to pick up things and move objects. It has been developed by researchers from Microsoft, the University of Maryland, KAIST, the University of Washington, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Microsoft’s ChatGPT for Robotics and Google’s RT-2 and PALM-E are AI-based robotics models that use large language models (LLMs) as interfaces and require separate models for perception and control. Magma integrates both abilities into a single base model. Microsoft is positioning it as agentic AI that can formulate plans and act on them rather than just answer questions. OpenAI’s Operator and Google’s Gemini 2.0 are endeavours towards agentic AI. Microsoft also launched Muse, a videogame AI model that generates visuals and actions. Never miss another post from SalestorrsNews150. Follow Salestorrs on WhatsApp , LinkedIn , Facebook , X , and Instagram . Previous Next

< Back US withdraws from 66 climate change organisations 9 Jan 2026 It includes the India-led International Solar Alliance (ISA), a coalition that promotes the adoption of solar energy globally. The US exited 66 global agreements with organisations focused on climate change, sustainability, and international governance, calling many of these bodies “wasteful,” “anti-American,” or misaligned with U.S. national interests. The US has exited the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), UN Water, UN Energy, and the International Energy Forum (IEF). The landmark UNFCCC agreement, signed in 1992, established basic principles for addressing climate change and led to the Paris Agreement at the UN Climate Change Conference in 2015 to reduce carbon emissions. The US became the first and only nation to withdraw from it. The US has been reducing participation in multilateral climate initiatives, arguing that these impose financial burdens without delivering proportional benefits. Critics warn that it weakens US influence in clean‑energy partnerships and signals a recalibration of their engagement in international climate diplomacy. Check out my new book, THE BLACK FLAMES , on Amazon Kindle. A gripping, high-stakes mystery. ⭐⭐⭐⭐.6 stars on Amazon ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ on Goodreads Previous Next

< Back Halting Chinese rare earth exports impacts auto, electronics, robotics 14 Apr 2025 On April 4th, China announced its plan to control the export of seven rare earth elements. After the US raised its tariffs on China to 145%, on April 4th, China halted seven rare earth elements exports: gadolinium, samarium, dysprosium, yttrium, terbium, scandium, and lutetium. China is the largest supplier of these elements, controlling 70% of the global production. These materials are extensively used by high-tech industries like automotive, especially EVs, robotics and AI hardware, aerospace and defence, electronics, and renewable energy. The US heavily depends on Chinese imports of these elements. It is now processing deals with Ukraine to allow US enterprises access to its rare earth metal reserves. Russia has offered to work with the US for joint production in Russia and occupied parts of Ukraine. The US and Europe are encouraging more mining and refining capabilities for these elements. Nations like Japan and companies globally are stockpiling, while enterprises like Tesla are trying to reduce the use of these rare minerals in their products. Never miss another post from SalestorrsNews150. Follow Salestorrs on WhatsApp , LinkedIn , Facebook , X , and Instagram . Previous Next