Whats next in game for Nokia

I would not be surprised if Nokia is planning an MVNO in India. They clearly meet criteria for MVNO biz.. strong brand name, leader in handset market in fastest groing wireless market- India, leader in equipment vendor in India with strong clients like Airtel and strong sales channel till Tier2-3 cities in India.
With TRAI having already floated recommendations on MVNO, players are busy designing their strategy including European player like Elisa

It is evident that focus in telecom will clealry shift to application rather than just network as was case in last decade. Technology evolution is not the only innovation in telecom space now. With VAS growing at expotential pace, it is quite a lucrative market for equipment vendors to avoid.
Moreover, equipment market space has already seen growth in services as a method to remain competitive. Nokia is currently in managed services deal for more than 13 circles in India with Airtel and working to gain more of such deals.

I see Nokia expanding is foot towards the application layer and positioning itself more towards end customer. The more they are able to increase mindshare with end-customer, better are their prosppects of becoming preferred alliance partner with operators in the geo. Notebook venture as per the news, seems one such attempt as an extension of thier strategy. With production units across geos, they can surly leverage economies of scale.
Moreover, Post IBM -Lenono deal, there has been a lot of change in market share game in notebook world.

Net-Net, I see Nokia expanding its presence from just being a leader in enterprise space in telecom world and expanding its foothold with end customer because, that the next field where next big games are going to player in telecom world

Inflation at 12.42% in Sep 2008

I see inflation softening... and I think it should be back to around 5-6% by march 2009 .... this is based on macro economic factors...

Telecom as backbone of growth

What is so different about telecom Vs other sectors like Banking, auto, manufacturing etc. All these are B2C but still where one hand there is talks about slowdown in other sectors, telecom is accelerating its pace.

Telecom from past 50 years have been yet anohter sector which depended on govt for investment. For single wireline connection, there use to years of waiting. Even in other global markets, telecom although was seen as advanced sector in terms of technology but not much was seen on commercial front.

And then came mobile boom!!!

With outcome of mobile and people connectivity, what countries also realised that telecom is very crucial for growth of economy. Telecom can bring about revolution ideas of optmising costs,it can drive and increase growth and demand and more important reduce the biggest factor- Distance between the people.

India is surely reaping the benefits of policiies of govt of opening up telecom sector to private players. With telecom came new ideas right from corporate and urban customers to remote farmer. Now even a farmer can negociate for best price for his product.

I am really keeen to watch further advancement and its links to economic growth once 3G come in.

India diversity reflects on its currency also

India is truly a diverse country and same reflects on its currency also.

I came across a fact that picture on backside of 20 Rupee note is actually has been taken at southern most tip of Andaman and Nicobar island.

Now can you believe that..!! Well I am glad to see how innovatively govt thought and got that pic.

Btw!! I have been to this place in Andamans and for your info this island is called 20Rupee Island ;)

iPhone in India....$299!!!

Answer is not $299 I guess.. There are views that iPhone might not be prices at Rs.8999 as it was speculated some time back when new iPhone 3G was launched.
AT&T in US is offering huge subsidy since they match up revenues from minutes, whereas in India minutes are already at al time low 2-3 cents/minute. With this, expected price for iPhone is said to be around 20K.
Lets wait and see!!!

Nano Effect

Tata Nano- A revolution.. yes i feel so.
Reason- Post Nano , all major car makers have announced investment in sub $3000 cars including likes of Nissan, GM and even Merc.
Indian govt has already increases excise duty on cars above 1500cc.
India fast becoming auto-component sourcing hub
Indian design center buzzing with increased headcount and global majors investing heavily in R&D centres in India
Tata is the only auto company in the world to have complete end-to-end product..right from Nano to JLR/LC

Blanket ban on shopping plastic bag in China

Sometimes it is good how communist form of govt can really benefit country and environment..China has imposed complete ban on plastic bags from June 1,2008.
World Environment Day should give some thought to Indian govt to think about this option in India too. I would say we should promote jute made bags since they are enviromently friendly and also promote employment oppys.

Telcos growing across boundaries

Where will be next billion subscribers coming from?

As an execution step towards the answer, telcos are all set with cross boundaries growth.

AT&T, one of the early entrant in Indian market made a decent profit of around $250mn after selling its stake in Idea back in early millenium. Thats a different story that current value of same stake is more than $2billion.

AT&T is standing right there waiting for its chance to enter Indian market again. Phenomenon of strong Indian telecom story is definately attracting major player across geography.
The reason is beyond just putting its dot in emerging market map. It is about getting balance sheet strong by matching up slow growth in current geography with fast emerging market for players in saturated market.For emerging market player, it is more to quench their thirst for larger play and ambitious plans.
With Middle east too witnessing fast growth in telecom sector after recent liberisation by the government, players in those region have realised the importance of moving out from reginal shell and spread its business in similar markets.
Etisilat recently confirmed its plan to enter Indian market through an Indian player, it is already in talks with Spice Communications, Datacom to name a few.
Also, there has been lot of unseen synergy which players like MTN and Reliance are working on, after Bharti opted out of race for MTN.

Similarly, players in middle east are actively working on buying stake in Indian wireless players and new greenfield players. This reaction from Middle east players came into picture after Vodafone's strategic acquisition of Hutch India to get emerging market as part of its growth plan. Major players like MTN, Qatar Telecom , Etisilat are all eyeing pie in Indian market since their hoem market will soon start witnessing lot of comeptition from new players. It becomes very important to open international strategy to make sure revenue dependency is not region focused.
Interest developed by middle east players in India and vice versa has opened one more dimension of growing business attractions between middle east and India for telecom landscape. This is an exciting step since it was not predicted or talked about option.
Major telco like Bharti and Reliance have been trying continously to enter Middle east market. They have been trying by bidding for licences but in vain. So now, they see ruote through mergers and acquisition as the best way to spread their expansion plans.
With western players actively eyeing Indian market, middle east players working aggresively to move out from regional shell and Indian players working on their global expansion plans, Telecom landscape is clearly geting more eventful and exciting.

Oil..Oil...Oil.. That is latest news in every circle

Today crude is trading at $130 and see no sign of retreat to lower number. OPEC still claims that they see no problem in supply-demand gap, whereas countires across globe are witnessing huge oil crisis.Most effected are ofcourse emerging nations like India and China. Commodity is highly dependant on oil prices since majority of tranportations means are based on oil and slight increase in oil results in a direct propotionate hit on inflation numbers.
Analyst say that they see some corrective measures coming into picture by year end, and that crude should be down to $80/barrell price.
Now, what has to be seen if how economies are going to take the balanced approach to minimise the impact of crude hit

IPO mania- Is this the end of the road....

India growing at 9% and going on.... Halt!! It is time to sharpen the saw.

Economy can never be trained or set as a process.It needs constant revisit for the road to future and to design a clear strategy for growth sector.Big money cycles which originates with foreign investments are now showing how wild these demons can get. Current down trend in global market will see emerging market revisit their strategy.Time has come where focus need to turn around from just infra and IT to manage Rupee-Dollar ratio and foreign investments.
Recent example $3bn IPO from big industry house which attracted $100bn of application, only thing is that is opened and closed at 30% discount. I think issue was too aggresively priced without even a single project going live. This can be linked to complacency getting developed in Indian markets. Assumptions made are optimistic appraoach on earning 100% return on every rupee invested. Last week too, Emaar, Builder of famous Al- Burj, World tallest tower of the world failed to attract investors for IPO which led to company withdrawing its IPO, same with another company Wockhardt. SO I think people should expect the blame that they thought of such IPO with so much of hype and when things went bad, thewy blame markets, company etc etc. People, please accept that dreams are going irrational now.
Today India talks about high growth, development. Recently started New Delhi- Gurgaon expressway and woes that is being witnessing daily reflect that we still are far away from infra experts. New international bangalore airport still doesnt have road connectivity, and we talk about development. I think infra story still need a revisit here to be so optimistic about this grwoth sector.
Market correction is giving India its real valuation, which means Indian market were overheated and I am surely positive that this correction was for good future of India

Stock Market Crash- What Next??

January 21, 2008 was yet another Black Monday followed by Black Tuesday.
Indian Sensex fell by more than 2000 points along with other Asian markets which corrected by 6-10%.
Reason- Growing speculation of US recession. There has been concerns growing about US recession, which will also impact global economy. Emerging economies like Taiwan and China are highly dependent on US exports, which range upto 60% of GDP for taiwan.
For Japan, it is concern on growth on internal japanese economy which got fuelled up by US factor.

US Fed has taken immediate emergency step by rate cut of 0.75% highest ever since 1984. US want to influx confidence in Global market to delete concerns of US economy and recession.
Indian market howevver saw lot of negative action. $160bn gone in 4 hours. In India, market had touched 21000, wherein lot of speculation has taken in place. Power stocks which had een great bull run were deeply hurt which corrected upto 70% in stocks.
Correction might be seen as good opportunity for buying stocks but here are few advice for you:
- Let the market stabilise, retail investors stay away and dont jump in to average in falling market

- Stay invested, what goes down will see its way up

- learn from this burn and invest in stocks based on fundamentals

- Don't run and invest your major part of portfolio in one sector

Stock Market turbulence across globe

27th Feb saw turbulence across stock markets globally.
With Chinese market witnessing selling, and a drop of 8% the effect was reflected across asian markets including Japan, Thailand, India, Singapore moving further to Dow Jones.
Dow Jones dropped by percentage which is lowest after 9/11. However, the stocks seems to be moving up positive now
As about Indian market, Sensex need to build more fundamental growth than just money inflow one.Most of Indian stock are measured by multiple factor wherein stocks should be measured by growth weight.The moment there is change in sensex, its fall as in bottomless pit like it happened on 23rd May,2006.
India quikly needs to keep stringent check on inflation and Real estate price.Too much money coming as FII, can lead to Bubble in real estate market.
Key sectors to gain money in stocks would be Infrastructure, IT and Telecom

West -- Outsourcing is globalisation;Accept it

Outsourcing is no more sales pitch of Chindia. It is globalisation.West started the phenomenon to save cost in IT leveraging Indian IT skills, and now when Indian companies are developing new innovative models, wherein they are providing customers ways to provide better services to their customers.

SO, ultimately it is people in west who are getting the advantage.And it is not just service advantage, but even employment in countries like US/Europe will increase. If companies will gain through better efficiencies, they in turn will hire more people to cater to their growing business.

Budget 2007 - Nothing new in the store

It is something which every comman man of India look forward to in, Annual Budget .2007 was no exception though it did not came with what was expected.
Finance Minister P.Chidambaram focussed this budget for agriculture and not for industry or middle class. THough there has been allocations done for agriculture to grow the sector, there are no such good news for salaried class.
Tax slabs remains same, exemption limit increased by 10k but then education cess increased to 3% and service tax to 20%. Now even ESOP will be taxed under FBT( though I am not getting them ;) )
Taxman!! you really have tough time ahead, geting industry to support ;)

Vodafone wins Hutch India

Yes, it is official, Vodafone has emerged as highest bidder for Hutch India with an enterprise value of $19.3 billion which comes to $794 per share.

This race for Hutch stake started a month fron now when Hutchison Hongkong showed interest to exit Indian markets.

In the race were, Anil Ambani Reliance Infocomm, Hindujas, Essar.
Though this deal of vodafone will be through partnership with Ruias of Essar, 67% stake will be controlled by Voda.
Vodafone needs to also disinvest their strategic 10% stake in Bharti as per regulation.

To mention, Bharti is top competitor for Hutch in India.

Offlate, Voda has shown a good amount of interest to enter emerging markets and have been exiting saturated market in europe, latest one being in swutzerland wherein they sold their 25% stake to swisscom.Voda has earlier also exited japan also in 2003.Winning Hutch India was very crucial for Vodafone to reduce the pressure building on their share price mainly because of reducing profitabilty and margins.

With Indian telecom market growing by close to 70-80% unlike 5% of UK, this was surely a golden chance for CEO Arun Sarin to take a stragic decision.Offlate, Sarin too have been pressure from management on falling margins with increasing competition in telecom space in UK
Voda interest in telecom can into focus when they bought stake in Bharti , with Singtel which is also having a strategic stake.
Nest step on closing the acquisition will be regulatory issues, govt clearance.Voda had a close door meeting with top official from Govt of India to discuss FDI route last month.
The biggest challenge, will be starting after the acquisition. Indian market is price sensitive market unlike Europe and what needs to be watched is how Vodafone is going to put its Red Round logo strap in neck of Indian Hutch Pug!!!!!

Before ending, just an interesing thought ;) check out this link:

http://fonearena.com/blog/what-will-vodafone-do-with-hutch.html

Retail chain/business moving to a new era

I am not being partial but seeing Kishore Biyani expanding his business from a kirana store in 1998 in calcutta to million dollar retail business surely deserve recognition.
Entering a new business maybe still easy for corporate with money and muscles,but I think its takes a vision to built such a business from scratch.
I have read books which talks about strategy and features of growing company and I am happy
to see those models working at company like Future group.
Biyani has surely tried to blend glocal touch with his thoughts. He hired executive from Goldman Sachs for Strategy and Business, working big time on supply chain, developing a volume based business which surely has chances to click more in India.
Although, I havent purchased anything besides a tie at Pantaloons but its surely keep updated by latest fashion and daily trends.I have realised this recently so surely Pantaloons will be worth trying next time for economical and good shopping.
With talks of FDI for retail moving towards 74%, I know Biyani group will be one which is going to be hit hardest and this shows clearly from his articles and interviews.
Recently, N R Murthy of Infosys shared views saying retail should be opened up.And my views here is that maybe its little early to open FDI In retail. The very emotional reason to support is that Indian group should be given some lead in the race to atleast grow and come to a platform to handle competition and form perfect competition in the market which are going to then benefit customers.Secondly, MNCs and retail biggies if allowed so early in market will lead to resource crunch thus moving costs up and also it will create a wave of mergers and acquisition too early in the market.

M&A is good for any market in little long run to being that correction which in turn benefit customers.But if it happens early,biggies creates a seller market which will also make it difficult for any new start up to penetrate in market.
Govt should first alllow Indian players like Reliance, Future group, Bharti, etc to set their operations and create awareness for retail market. This will also get more revenue for govt when foreign players will enter market.
Retail surely in next market to cheers after Telecom in India.

Retail going online-FutureBazaar

India surely makes a different market in terms of business models and customising approach towards customer.Retail business is the one which has started trying new models now.Today, saw huge billboard of FutureBazaar,owned by Biyani's Future group.I think they are wroking to rebrand their retail chain.
As far this futurebazaar goes, it is online retail shop. Looks like click and pay and home delivery.I still remember during my B-School days,when Me and my friend actually had discussion on such a online model in retail. And I even mentioned the idea on my blog in August 2005.

The challenge which for these retail chain in India will be modifying the business model.Such a model is visible in cities and metro wherein people are short of time.One thing important here is supply chain.Now Biyani is investing lot of money and also it has started working on its back -end,maybe they will be able to Click the opportunity.

India is a Medical Outsourcing Destination - Tom Peters

Outsourcing is all geared up to cover one more area and this time its Medical Outsourcing
Medical Toursim off late has been catching up fast in India with top hospitals like Apollo ,Fortis etc, partnering with Tourism co-ordinator and providing world class treatment clubbed with tour to Incredible India.
And with management guru and thinkrs like Tom Peters writing about it on his blog,this surely is something which can be labeled an upcoming trend.As Tom mentions, a poor lady from America who is not insured and cannot afford to get herself treated in US flies in to India and get herself world-class luxurious treatment at just 1/3rd the price.Indian doctors are renowed community in US so this can be surely lableled as safe
Increasing insurance cost in west and long waiting list for treatment at government hospitals in coutries like UK and US are factor which will be catalyst for Medical Outsourcing .Also, poor health conditions in countires like Africa,Middle east and even south east asia, India surely going to become a Medical Hub.This might see the same trend in future what IT witnessed in '90s
Looks like the word 'Bangalored' gonna see more addition to its meaning

My experience at Andamans

Catching early morning flight from Chennai was rush for me. Though I was lucky to catch it on time. I was very excited for this journey but my half sleep forced me to take a small nap.

At 7.30 I woke up hearing people talking about some beautiful views....moment I saw from window. my eyes got glued to the scene. One can see beaches and sea from top with thick covered forests.

I wish I could have clicked snaps but my cell was switched off. My first impression was very positive when I came out from plane and the runaway running straight towards sea.

We were attended by personnel from megapode nest which is best of places to stay at andamans. The drive took us 10 mins through curved roads. The morning has just begun at Andamans. Finally I landed up at Megapode and finally to 3 star Room. Sound of siren took me to the garden at back and I saw a Ship moving towards the land. I was told that the port is nearby and that one can see ships passing by very close.

My father's friend were courteous to attend us and took us in his santro, I came to know that people there have to pay 25K extra for the new car freight. But they are exempted from sales tax on all the items...education is free till 12th and they have a quota for admission to professional courses across mainland (thats what they call India)

Kala Pani...I was wondering for long time when we stopped in front of a national memorial. This is famous old Kala Pani...or the cellular jail. It is one more of Britshers excellent construction, on an island when and where finding resource was a difficult task. The light and sound show takes you around the history of the islands back t British times. Very well made and preserved memorial, it gives the idea the pain, which our great heroes and freedom fighter took.

Next day was for Coral islands...scuba diving was something which was defn very exciting. Going undersea was an amazing experience and seeing sea life live along with corals. Spend time eating lovely seafood and was damn tasty. Nearby Lighthouse caught our attention and I made it to top to get whole view of the island.

Havelock Island was our next day trip. Went on a 500 seater Ship and being first time, very exciting. I was there either on the top or the nose of the ship to feel sea breeze and water around for 4 hours. Resorts there are an experience and Man!! I saw crystal clear water and green beach for first time...The water was eye-catching with shaded of blue and green. We cud walk down 500 meters down the sea which was shallow till our knee height. With cool water pushing you around.

Spend evening at another beach, which had good waves to float around. Spent night there and pushed back for port Blair the next morning. Evening was enjoyed at our uncle’s house with tasty homely dinner.
The local market is small and there is nothing which 1 can buy or carry back (Mind you, taking corals from the island is illegal) 4th day morning, boarded flight for Chennai and afternoon when I landed at Chennai the lovely memories of that beautiful and quite islands still cherished my memories.

The place is highly recommended for all. a MUST visit and good for honeymoon couples where they can defn spent quality time with each other.

Indian is too young for WiBro

Korea is catching up with WiBro.. 10.5 Million subscribers by 2010...
Did I wrote WiBro.... ?? or is it WiMax....!!

Well friends its WiBro...or Wireless Broadband..

WiBro is developed by Koreans who are projecting it between developing 3G technologies and coming 4G technology. Bascilly focussed for people who are looking for internet acccess in public domain through their personal phone.

Offering a speed of 54Mbps ,this gives the user complete mobility for wireless access.
operating on 2.3 GHz ,it is keen on taking 3G technologies.

India ,though a growing market is still too young for it. With coming of WiMax ,data usage will definately move to wireless. and why not ,its easier to deploy and to maintain.

WiBro will take off if there is a demand for string data access.

SO lets wait n watch.....!!!!