New Delhi, October 17 (IANS): To arrest the sales decline triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, players in the luxury automobile space have gone on an offers' offensive, making customer the 'Absolute King'. On offer are direct discounts and indirect value added propositions like 'free insurance' and 'service packs'. Accordingly, discounts ranging from 5 to as much as 8.5 per cent on ultra-luxury cars and SUVs are being bestowed. The high price tag on

New Delhi, October 16 (IANS): Samsung took the top spot in the global smartphone market in August driven by sales growth in India as the market recovered from a nationwide lockdown, a Counterpoint Research report said on Friday. The South Korean tech giant also recaptured the top spot in India in July-August period, according to Counterpoint's latest Monthly Market Pulse report. Samsung has now reached its highest market share in India since 2018 by adopting an aggressive onl

San Francisco, October 16 (IANS): Third-party sellers surpassed $3.5 billion in sales on Prime Day, a nearly 60 per cent year-over-year increase, Amazon said after wrapping up the two-day event across 19 countries. In addition, Prime members around the world saved over $1.4 billion during the event, securing deep discounts and getting a jump start on their holiday shopping, Amazon said on Thursday. The e-commerce giant held its Prime Day event separately in India in August. Th

New Delhi, October 16 (IANS): Low base along with more sustainable pent-up demand boosted domestic passenger vehicles' sales in September on a year-on-year basis. According to industry data released on Friday, a total of 2,72,027 passenger vehicles were sold in the domestic market, representing a rise of 26.45 per cent, than the 2,15,124 units off-take during the like period of 2019. Similarly, the data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed

NEW DELHI, October 15 (Reuters):  India's federal government said it plans to borrow 1.1 trillion rupees in tranches to compensate states for tax losses due to the spread of coronavirus, breaking an impasse between New Delhi and some of the states. Under the 2017 national goods and services tax (GST), the federal government was mandated to compensate states if their revenue growth fell below 14% a year. But due to a sharp fall in tax collection the government was al

NEW DELHI, October 15 (Reuters): India has decided not to mandate secondary listings for domestic firms that float shares on a foreign stock exchange as it prepares to announce a new policy within weeks, two senior government sources and two industry executives told Reuters. India is close to drawing up rules for companies to directly float overseas without first having to list shares at home, as a way to help startups attain higher valuations and access capital more easily.

New Delhi, October 13 (IANS): India's largest power producer, National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC Ltd), has started to collaborate with cement manufacturers across the country to supply fly ash to achieve 100 per cent utilisation of the by-product produced during power generation. NTPC is leveraging the Indian Railways' sprawling network to transport fly ash in an economical and environment-friendly manner. NTPC Rihand is the first power plant in Uttar Prades

New Delhi, October 13 (IANS): Smart Power India, a subsidiary of Rockefeller Foundation, has recommended technical audit and routine monitoring of solar hybrid mini grids. In its recently launched ‘Technical Monitoring Guide' for solar hybrid mini grids in India, the company has also recommended remote technical assessment of the mini grids. In a statement, it said that technical audit provides a detailed snapshot of the plant at a given point in time, providing a basel

New Delhi, October 13 (IANS): Fuel consumers did not face any change in petrol and diesel prices for one-third of a month as stable global oil prices ensured that oil marketing companies did not need to go for a revision. Diesel prices have stayed at the same level since last October 3, completing 11 days when the fuel did not see any revision. Petrol prices have been stable for a longer period, completing 21 days on Tuesday. With no revision in fuel prices on Tuesday in the nati

New Delhi, October 13 (IANS): Telecom major Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL) on Tuesday announced that it has selected IBM Services to help it embrace open source at scale across the enterprise by implementing the big data platform on open source Hadoop framework. The IBM big data platform helps businesses address the "full spectrum" of big data business challenges. BM Services implements data transformation with open technologies to propel Vodafone Idea's hybrid cloud s

New Delhi, October 13 (IANS): As the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced a couple of demand boosting measures along with loans to states for increasing capital expenditure after a lot of anticipation, concerns have again been raised over the adequacy and effectiveness of the measures. As per stock brokerages, the latest demand-moving measures are insufficient and the results are only going to be "modest". Sitharaman on Monday announced an 'LTC Cash Vou

New Delhi, October 12 (IANS): Coming festive season government employees will receive interest-free advance of Rs 10,000 each that will help generate demand worth Rs 8,000 crore in the Covid affected economy. Employees will get pre-loaded Rupay Card of the advance value, which they would have to spend by March 31, 2021. The amount spent would be recoverable in 10 instalments. The bank charges for the issue of card will be borne by the government. With a view to boost consumer dem

Bengaluru, October 12 (IANS): Walmart and the Flipkart Group on Monday announced a fresh round of investment in Ninjacart, a Bengaluru-headquartered supply chain platform that sources fresh produce directly from farmers and quickly delivers them to retailers and businesses. This follows the investment made by Walmart and the Flipkart Group in December 2019, as the companies continue to focus on ensuring access to high quality fresh produce for consumers and retailers. This second

New Delhi, October 12 (IANS): Even as the festive season of Navratri is around the corner, the rising prices of vegetables are giving a headache to the common man. Prices of all vegetables, including potatoes, tomatoes and onions are touching the sky and there seems to be no hope of a respite any time soon. Vegetable traders say that due to heavy rains during the last phase of this monsoon season, the arrival of vegetables in the market has been at a low due to the crops being

New Delhi, October 12 (IANS): While the ongoing pandemic has left crores of Indians in deep financial trouble who are struggling to make ends meet, the aspirational Bharat -- riding on the pent-up demand and discretionary income -- is all set to embark on a record online festive sale journey that begins this week. E-commerce marketplaces Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal are ready with festive discounts and mega offers that will begin raining on the consumers from October 16 and those f

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 11 (IANS): As the pandemic has severely hit businesses and more so in the case of automobiles, hospitality and real estate sectors, a PwC report has suggested the suspension of Goods and Services Tax (GST) on these sectors for a minimum of six months. The report titled "Reimagining GST@3" said that such a measure will provide much-needed cash liquidity to these sectors and ensure business continuity. It noted that considering the impact on the economy

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 10 (IANS): Budget airline SpiceJet on Saturday operated its maiden charter flight to Georgia flying 176 students from Chennai to Tbilisi. Accordingly, the airline will operate another charter flight to Georgia from Kochi on Sunday for 174 Indian students. The airline has played a key role in repatriating more than 1.6 lakh stranded Indian and foreign nationals to and from countries such as UK, Italy, Canada, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Netherla

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 10 (IANS): The Reserve Bank's accommodative policy along with a likely US stimulus package are expected to strengthen the Indian rupee in the short-run. Additionally, fund inflows channelled towards stock markets and corporate deals will be other factors for the rise in the rupee's value, cited analysts. However, the upcoming US elections along with domestic macroeconomic inflation data might dampen sentiments. "The policy outcome had a knee-jer

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 10 (IANS): Ratings agency India Ratings and Research has opined that a cess reduction on oil and gas sector is likely to benefit upstream firms such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Oil India. "Together, these developments (likely cess reduction and change in the gas price regime), if implemented, will be a big positive for their cash flows from operations; however, this may not necessarily translate to higher free cash flows as the dividend payouts cou

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 10 (IANS): Despite an accelerated sales run in the Covid era, automobile major Maruti Suzuki is still cautiously optimistic about offtake prospects during the upcoming festive season. Traditionally, the festive period is regarded as the prime sales season in India with brands focusing on new launches and shoring up offtake performance. However, Covid-19's impact is expected to diminish some of the vigour during this season. Nevertheless, low base, rising