India Business BuzzIndia Business BuzzTrakin is a popular Indian Business Blog Articles
Iphone officially coming to India with Vodafone, but at a steep price tag
2008-04-23 15:05:00 Iphones are such a craze that more than 200,000 units are estimated to be operational in India , all of which are unofficially unlocked versions. At 25k + price tag they don't come cheap, however it has not stopped hoardes of people going after this much sought after mobile gadget. Having a Iphone is a status symbol, be it US or India ! So finally after several months of speculation, reports are in that Vodafone is going to launch Apple Iphone mobile handsets in India by September 2008. More About: Smartphones , Iphone
The Dirty world of Corruption
2008-04-22 16:02:00 One of the biggest change that I have seen in Indian media (especially TV news media) is the amount of trash a.k.a- masala news they telecast throughout the day. With 100s of new channels getting launched, every news channel seems to have such lack of exclusive news that they go to any lengths to make a news - A Breaking News. I see most of the news channels beaming only Bollywood and Entertainment news, most of the time. I digress- coming back to the subject, while switching between channels during the IPL match yesterday evening, I happened to see something interesting on a news channel. A sting operation carried out by Channel Aaj Tak. It was such a news that I did not switch back to IPL ! More About: World , Dirty , Corruption
Poll Results: Not many give Force India a chance at Formula One Championshi
2008-04-20 08:50:00 I had put up a poll a month back asking readers on what they think are the chances of Vijay Mallya backed Force India Formula One team at this years championship and what will be their standings. Here is what the Poll results show: More than 46% readers expect Force India will be in the bottom 4. The first 3 races of this season seem to be pointing at that as well. Good number (27%) of readers feel that they will be in the middle of the pack. I'd be surprised if Force India ranks above number 7. It will be very difficult but not impossible. More About: Results , Chance , Auto
Its confirmed ! US no longer a preferred job destination, even for IIT grad
2008-04-20 08:21:00 Not very long ago, very few gave a second thought when given an opportunity to go to U.S for employment or further studies. Not anymore ! Things have changed drastically over last 3-4 years. Infact, due to India 's booming economy and opportunities galore, it is now becoming a preferred job destination among many graduates. Even IITians, who were known to move to US and other developed countries for job and higher studies are reversing the trend. Evalueserve, a leading global research and analytics firm recently released a survey that has some interesting numbers: More About: Indians , Destination
Interview with CEO of Zamanzar, an Indian Real Estate Startup
2008-04-17 11:35:00 The Indian real estate sector has witnessed meteoric rise in last 3-4 years. There are number of real estate startups currently catering to this growth, predominantly in online property listing space. However, young real estate startup - Zamanzar - is going beyond than being just a classified property site. They offer end to end real estate buying and selling solutions. Here is a detailed interview with Nisheeth Ranjan, CEO of Zamanzar. Nisheeth is a BS from Cornell University and an MS from Stanford University and has more than 10 years of technical, managerial, and business development experience in Silicon Valley companies like Netscape/AOL, Liveops, and Trulia. More About: Estate , Real Estate , Interview , Startup
Reliance Entertainment buys 200 movie theaters in U.S. - Are they spreading
2008-04-16 14:07:00 I just came across this news in Business Week that mentions Reliance Entertainment has bought around 200 movie theaters in U.S. within last 3 months alone. I have been quite surprised at how aggressively Anil Ambani owned, Reliance entertainment, arm of Reliance ADAG has spread the wings in such a short span. Within last 2-3 years it has entered into nearly every business in entertainment space. A look at different ventures of Reliance Entertainment: Venture Entertainment Space Zapak online gaming and downloads Bigflicks offering online/offline movie rentals BigAdda India n social networking site BigTV offering direct to home (DTH) services BIG92.7FM India’s largest private FM radio network ADLAB Films producer, distributor, processor and movie theater owner of Indian cinemas BIGwhat? ... More About: Movie , Growth
Get ready to change your mobile number !
2008-04-15 16:49:00 In 2003 Indian Telecom department had planned for 10 digit mobile numbering that would last for 30 years, but given the meteoric rise in the number of mobile subscribers, the quota seems to be over within 5 years. The growth in mobile subscribers has been nearly 100% year on year reaching 250 million by the end of last month. The tele-density in the country is more than 25 per cent now, with the average monthly mobile growth at over 8 million. The government has set a target of 500 million phone subscribers by the year 2010. To accommodate this growth, the DoT plans to introduce an additional prefix of 9 to every mobile number taking it to 11 digits. So, `99? will be the first two digits in every mobile number, in the 11-digit regime. More About: Mobile , Change , Ready , Get Ready , Number
12 million Indian Mobile TV users to subscribe in first year of launch
2008-04-15 12:27:00 Thats what the report suggests in its recently released report - mobile TV in India - by Springboard research. I am not surprised given that India boasts currently boasts around 250 million mobile subscribers and expected to reach 500 million by end of this decade. Mobile TV is a technology that allows people to view regular live television content on their mobile phones or other mobile devices that they get through traditional cable or pay TV subscriptions at home. Here are some of the highlights of the research: More About: Television , Business , Indian , Telecommunications
Global Information Technology report ranks India at 50th rank- 7 places ahe
2008-04-14 16:00:00 Even though India is regarded as the Information Technology hub, Indian has been ranked lowly at 50th place in the recent report - The Global Information Technology Report 2007-2008 - produced by the World Economic Forum in cooperation with INSEAD, the leading international business school. In this year rankings, Denmark got the coveted position of being the most networked economy in the world, followed by Sweden and Switzerland. Among the top ten, the Republic of Korea (9) and, to a lesser extent, the United States (4) post the most notable improvements. China fared even worst in the ranking and came in at 57th place, 7 ranks below India. It is quite surprising given the infrastructure development taking place in China in last 2 decades. The comprehensive report ranked total of 127 economies on more than 80 different parameters covering the environment, readiness and usage of Information Technology. The pdf of full ranking can be found here Given that India and China are reg... More About: Business , Rank
The good side of US recession
2008-04-14 10:22:00 I had earlier voiced my opinion that US recession may be a boon for Indian offshore software companies. Infact, even as America is moving into recession, Indian offshore companies are getting more business than ever before. The impact of recession is undoubtedly higher to small and medium sized enterprises whose bottom lines get squeezed due to lack of spending by consumers. These thousands of small and medium enterprises are increasingly waking up to cash in on the outsourcing wave, a market opportunity explored by their big daddies for a couple of decades now. More About: Good , Side , Recession , The Good
Nice to see local government offices adopting technology
2008-04-12 14:05:00 I was pleasantly surprised to see our local Pune Municipal corporation site getting a nice revamp and adding tons of new features making life of average citizens dealing with local authorities much easier. Very recently they launched a "better roads" initiative. The unique thing about this project is that it is a wonderful blend of NGO, technology and PMC coming together to work for a social cause. Any web user can go and register complaints using Google maps. If you have a road dug up, potholes or any other road related complaints just find your area on the map and register the complaint. Nice ! More About: Technology , Government , Local , Offices
Future of Rupee against Dollar?
2008-04-10 09:26:00 Last year around June I had written about the dollar plunge against the Rupee . For all the Indian s living in U.S, it was one of the most concerning aspect as any remittances to India were nearly 15% lower. Most of them were expecting Rupee to keep on appreciating and break even the 35 Rupee mark against the dollar. Till December of last year that trend remained intact, however 2008 seems to have taken a sudden U turn. After a gap of more than a year Rupee has depreciated to over 40 against the dollar, much to everyone's surprise. Although it has been range-bound for last month or so, no one seems to be talking about 35 Rupee mark that was expected to hit as per most of the analysts. More About: Future , Dollar , Acquisition
IXIGO?s launches hotel search Engine
2008-04-09 11:09:00 iXiGO, an Indian travel aggregator has announced the launch of its hotel search engine, a natural progression for their travel search. As per the press release, ixigo hotel search engine can search and book accommodation in real time across 4500 hotels in 320 Indian cities. XiGO’s hotel search accesses more than 30 leading national and international hotel booking websites, enabling comparisons of room tariffs of the same hotel across multiple sites within a few seconds. The hotel search engine sorts accommodation by price, star ratings, amenities and allows detailed views for maps and photos; all in a single webpage. An instant keyword search on names, addresses and filters on best value within hotels narrows down the search – features so far restricted to only select international travel portals. I tried doing couple of searches for hotels in Bangalore and results were decent enough. Being purely a search engine, the visitors will have to visit the parent hotel ... More About: Hotel , Search , Search Engine , Engine
The big difference between expectation and reality!
2008-04-08 11:37:00 The real estate prices in India have soared to gigantic proportions in last few years. The prices have soared as high as 300% in last 3 years. Although, consumer earnings too have grown, it is no match for the steep rise in real estate prices. I saw an interesting online survey conducted by MagicBricks recently on the aspirations of India online & the great Indian dream of owning a home. Results of this survey highlighted the huge gap between the expectations of a common average Indian and the reality of Real Estate Pricing. The survey also showed that nearly 60% of Internet surfers in India look for property-related information on websites. More About: Reality , Money , Difference
A quick wrap-up for March
2008-04-07 07:28:00 March was another good month for trak.in. The traffic and subscribers grew moderately. I have to admit that for last couple of months, I have not been able to post as regularly as I would have liked, but that's for a reason. My startup- hover.in - has been in talks with couple of investors for angel/seed funding. You should hear something from us in a month or so. Also, we have been in the process of company formation, which in itself is a very daunting task. With these activities taking majority of my time last month, I have not been able to give much time to trak.in blog lately. More About: Blogging , Quick , March , Wrap
10 Indian online advertising networks
2008-04-03 17:34:00 Online advertising is steadily robbing the market share from traditional media advertising. Given the potential of growth and increasing Internet penetration in India, online advertising is set to explode in coming years. The 38.5 million Indian Internet users, according to an IAMAI study, have become the prime target for numerous advertisers clouding the web. To cash in on this growth, number of online ad networks have come up in India in last few years. Here is an overview of current pool of online ad networks in India. Komli is a leading online ad network in India offering tools to Publishers to help them manage, optimise, and make the most of their online advertising. On the other hand, advertisers have access to millions of clients worldwide in order to increase their consumer commitment, brand recognition, leads, and sales. They offer different options such as CPM and performance based CPC and CPA marketing. Solutions to both publishers and advertisers include Komli premi... More About: Advertising , Online Advertising , Networks , Online
Now the Armani?s and Ferrari?s trying to woo Cash rich Indian consumers
2008-04-01 17:33:00 The world is eyeing the pockets of cash rich India n consumers like never before. And why not, the pace at which India is changing has to be seen to be believed. Even in a tier II city like Pune, you can see luxury cars (costing more than Rs. 50 lakh each) plying the roads in abundance. The younger generation is also getting quite hip. If you pass by any college - one look at students will give you a glimpse of how savvy they are getting about fashion. The clothes and accessories they sport are straight from the ramp ! That's exactly why Giorgio Armani has become the latest of a horde of high-end brands to target India?s growing appetite for luxury goods. The Italian group will take a 51 per cent stake in a joint venture with DLF, the Indian property developer ? the biggest presence it is allowed in the country under regulations. The first Armani outlet will be opened at a new ?super luxury mall? being built by DLF, which also has a partnership with Dolce & Gabbana, in New Del... More About: Business , Cartney , Rich , Luxury
Virgin Mobile sets foot in India with 2 great TV advertisments
2008-03-31 07:54:00 Image from WikipediaI have said this repeatedly earlier and I am saying it again. I love India n TV advertisements. They not only pass across the message in those limited 10 seconds, but the fun element in it keeps the viewers wanting for more. The 2 recent addtions to my favorite list are 2 maiden ads released by Virgin ... More About: Mobile , Sets , Great
Have you seen Zoho lately?
2008-03-30 14:40:00 Zoho never ceases to surprise me ! The quality of SAAS solutions (free or very competitively priced) Zoho keeps churning out at consistent regularity must be making SAAS giants Google and Microsoft quite uncomfortable. In last couple of months Zoho has introduced 3 new very useful SAAS solutions/ utilities: Zoho Invoice, Zoho People and Zoho Viewer Zoho Invoice is an online invoice generation and tracking application for small and Medium sized businesses. It lets you create, send and track Invoices & Estimates. Some of the features of Zoho Invoice: Create and send branded invoices, quotes or estimates. Automate repeated invoicing through recurring invoices. Track outstanding invoices and customer payments. Accept payment online. Send overdue reminders, acknowledge payment receipts. Expand your business overseas, with support for multi-currency. Data security and backup. SSL encryption of data on transit. Powerful reports to see how your business is doing. Pricing: T... More About: Business , Human Resources , Growth , Zoho
See you at BarCamp Mumbai
2008-03-28 08:18:00 This edition of BarCamp seems to be a big affair with more than 530 registrations as of writing this. I will be travelling to Mumbai tomorrow to attend the event. Event Details: Date: 29 March 2008 (this Saturday) Time: 9:00am to 6:00pm Venue: IIT Mumbai Shailesh J Mehta School of Management (SJMSOM) at IIT Bombay Powai, Mumbai - 400076 How to get there: Wikimapia Another Map + Guidelines Registrations are open, you can add your name to the list. They are already at 400+ 530+ please add your name before we run out of space :) Looking forward to meet up with Trak.in readers, fellow bloggers and entrepreneurs. More About: Barcamp
Pricesbolo.com: Online price comparison tool for your favourite products
2008-03-26 14:08:00 One of the biggest advantages of buying online is competitive pricing on offer by hundreds of online vendors. In countries like US and UK, majority of online shoppers compare product pricing using comparison tools like pricegrabber, dealtime, or deal sites like delas2buy or slickdeals. However, in India , online shopping is yet to take off in a big way. We are at the very start of this phenomenon. Even today most of us prefer going to nearby shops or malls and buy the products we want. One of the disadvantages of this is that you never know if you are getting the best price available. This is where Pricesbolo comes into picture. Pricesbolo.com enables consumers to compare and find the best deals on consumer electronics products from thousands of merchants spread across Bangalore and Chennai. It is a platform to bring the merchants and the consumer closer in a cost effective manner. A consumer can choose the product from the various categories listed and compare the price, fea... More About: Business , Products , Tool , Online
Is mall culture capturing India?
2008-03-24 06:42:00 Absolutely, without any doubt the mall culture has gripped India ns and they seem love every bit of it. Few days back I visited a newly opened 2 million square feet everything-under-one-roof mall in Pune. I was shocked to see the number of people that had thronged the place. It seemed to be some kind of a huge people procession out there. In earlier days (about a decade back), if you wanted to do any kind of shopping, one had couple of places to go (or should I say streets) like Laxmi Road or Main street (every city has shopping streets like these, especially in the downtown area), where small shoppers line up across the roads. Bargaining to extract the best price was common place- and it had it own charm too. More About: Culture , Growth , Mall
Success in simplicity
2008-03-21 07:58:00 Is your startup like the one illustrated in the 3rd block? More About: Success , Simplicity
Cleartrip.com: The most user-friendly OTA in India
2008-03-19 10:36:00 Last year I did a comparison of 10 OTA's operating in India . The comparison was done based on 5 different parameters like Ticket fares, Flight options, Destinations, User Friendliness and value added services. In that comparison IXIGO scored quite well on most aspects including user friendliness. Cleartrip and Yatra also got good points on user friendliness aspect. However, in a recent survey conducted by Juxtconsult, Cleartrip seems to have taken a lead over other OTA rivals in terms of user friendliness. The JuxtConsult survey conducted on the online travel portals involved most of the leading players in the OTA category – Cleartrip, Makemytrip, Yatra, Travelguru and Indiatimes Travel (surprisingly IXIGO was not included in the survey). To measure the ‘Website User-Friendliness’ Index, respondents were asked to rate the travel portals on 19 distinct parameters under 4 categories: ease of access, design appeal, ease of usage and usage satisfaction. Cleartrip ca... More About: Investment , Trip , Friendly
Formula One Championship: Has Force India got any chances?
2008-03-18 16:00:00 The F1 season has started on a wrong note for Force India making its debut at Australian Grand Prix. The mainstay of Force India, the seasoned Giancarlo Fisichella, could not even get his car across through the first bend due to a messy accident. Adrian Sutil, the other rookie driver for Force India did put up some show till the time car gave up. Coming from behind he atleast overtook 5 cars, probably the only solace for Vijay Mallya backed Force India F1 team. Having said that, I would not run to any conclusions as yet, given that more than two thirds of the car could not even get to the checkered flag. I am setting up a month long poll for readers to know what they think about the chances of Force India in this years Formula One Championship . More About: Auto
Recession and Indian IT services industry
2008-03-16 16:07:00 Mark (name changed) wanted to outsource some of his development work. A typical outsourcing process starts with bidding, where companies from different cheaper countries including India would bid for projects. He asks one of his manager (An Indian abroad), to take a look at the different bids and choose the cheapest one. After looking at the bids, our Desi manager goes speechless! The bids received from Indian companies are almost equal to hiring a team abroad and getting the work done! getting the similar work done from countries like Brazil and Mexico is so cheap that they are quite comparable to an amount a typical Indian would spend during casual shopping or when they go out for a party with friends! The reasons for this are quite simple. More About: Business , Services , Industry
Event: Pune Blogger Meet
2008-03-14 04:42:00 Pune will be having a blogger meet today (15/3/2008). I know it is quite late to announce this event, but readers (and bloggers) from Pune should attend this event if they can make some space in their Friday evening schedule. I am planning to be there at the blogger meet from 4 to 4:45 PM, as I have an important meeting at 5:00pm. Luckily, my meeting is at S.B road, which is quite close to the venue making it possible for me to attend it partially. I am sure it would be a great event, as nearly 40 bloggers have already registered for it. More About: Event , Blogger , Meet , Pune
Why this sudden reversal ?
2008-03-13 16:18:00 What has gone wrong with India's fortune ? Suddenly everything seems to be reversing. The rupee is going down, the stock market is getting hammered, Inflation has moved dangerously high above 5%, every sector is seeing negative growth, even the hottest topic of 2007 - mergers and acquisitions by Indian companies - has experienced a massive dip !
What do bloggers do online?
More articles from this author:2008-03-11 05:01:00 The recent ComScore study throws up some interesting facts about blogger's web consumption. As majority of bloggers are from US and UK, the survey shows their browsing preferences and amount of time they spend on which kind of sites. Technorati tracks more than 115 million blogs and they are growing. Infact, blogs outnumber traditional websites. Heavy Bloggers are Heavy Consumers of News and Entertainment Content For purposes of this study, heavy bloggers are defined as the heaviest 20 percent of blog visitors who account for 84 percent of all the time spent on blogging sites.Given that blogs can often be described as both informative and entertaining, it is not surprising that heavy users of blog sites are more likely than the average Internet user to consume news and entertainment content online. They are significantly more likely to consume content at politics and general news sites, and also consume a disproportionate amount of content on entertainment news, humor, mov... More About: Blogging , Online 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
|
 |
|
 |
