Paytm, Future Group, Flipkart plan $100 mn content push to take on Amazon

Flipkart is looking at adding content to its portal

Major e-commerce and retail players, including Paytm, Future Group and Flipkart, are set to invest close to $100 million in procuring and incorporating entertainment content, in a bid to take on Amazon India.

According to sources, Paytm, which recently announced a host of new features in ‘Inbox’, its in-app messaging service, including live TV, news, cricket, entertainment videos and games, is planning to invest close to $30 million in this sector.

Kishore Biyani-led Future Group is planning to make significant investments in creating a separate entertainment vertical on the company’s various apps and has set aside close to $14.5 billion for on-boarding artificial intelligence and machine learning on its platform to support entertainment content. It is also in talks with various entertainment content providers as well as movie theatre chains to provide tickets online as well as offline.

Article Source : BS

BookMyShow looks for Flipkart's backing to combat Alibaba

A minority stake in BookMyShow to give Flipkart a play in the fast-growing online ticketing space and also an access to a high-spending loyal customer base

Amid competition from deep-pocketed global players like Alibaba, India’s leading online ticketing platform BookMyShow is looking for a backing in its space from Flipkart, the country’s largest internet company.

While Flipkart BookMyShow Deal has been one of the few profitable internet companies in India, with a profit of Rs 3.1 crore on a revenue of Rs 248 crore in the year that ended March 2016, competition from rivals like Paytm has caused sales growth to slow.

To shield itself from cash-burning rivals, BookMyShow will sell a minority stake to Flipkart, a behemoth with a cash reserve of $4 billion. For the e-commerce major, a stake in BookMyShow will give it a play in the fast-growing online ticketing space and also an access to a high-spending loyal customer base.

Also Read : Latest Current Affairs

According to Livemint, which reported the story first on Monday, Flipkart is interested in outright ownership of BookMyShow, but talks have largely steered towards purchase of a minority stake in the company. Both companies have a common investor in Accel Partners, one of the oldest and reputed early-stage VCs in the country.

Flipkart has been an active investor in other internet businesses and its acquisitions like Myntra, Jabong and PhonePe have borne fruit. Myntra says it will become profitable at an earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) level by March 2018, while PhonePe says it is the largest digital payments player on UPI.

While Flipkart is looking at categories like groceries to get customers to buy from it more often, the model will take time and significant investments over the next few years. On the other hand, online ticketing, already an established market in India, will give Flipkart the desired repeated purchases on its platform. Read More

RBI removes walls between e-wallets, soon a Paytm user can transact with a MobiKwik user

Inter-operability to help players increase business

To make the use of digital cash more prevalent and convenient, a digital wallet user would soon be able to accept cash from the user of another Ewallet, because of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) tweaking its guidelines.

Current Affairs News : For example, a Paytm wallet user would soon be able to accept cash from a PhonePe wallet user.

Opening up the strings of digital wallets, the RBI on Wednesday said it would issue revised directions by October 11 to allow “inter-operability” among prepaid payment instruments (PPIs). These include digital wallets, prepaid cash coupons and prepaid telephone top-up cards. PPIs are a substitute for paper currency.

It is expected that PPIs can inter-operate within six months of the revised directions, the RBI said in its “Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies”.

ALSO READ: RBI pauses, revises growth forecast down sharply

The RBI said the feedback received was examined and it was decided to rationalise the operational guidelines with a view to encouraging competition and strengthening security of operations, besides improving customer grievance redressal mechanisms.

The first guidelines for issuance and operation of PPIs came in April 2009 with the objective to create an ecosystem. In March, the RBI asked for feedback on the PPI industry. At present, two people using the same digital wallet can do transactions; in less than six months, people using digital wallets from different companies would be able to send and receive money from each other. Read More

Flipkart, Amazon create 42,000 temporary jobs this festive season

Temporary employment opportunities are up 25% over last year as firms staff-up to meet festive season demand

There's good news for job seekers amid the economic slowdown. According to reports, temporary employment opportunities are up 25 per cent over last year as companies rushed to staff-up for the festive season.

According to the Economic Times, demand for temporary staff has been pushed by online sales and festive shopping. Citing staffing firms and e-commerce companies, the financial daily reported that temporary jobs, mainly in delivery and logistics, had reached a new high.

Quoting Yeshab Giri, head of IT staffing & specialties at Randstad India, an HR service provider, the report said that nearly 130,000 seasonal jobs could be created during the festive period in 2017. In fact, according to the report, e-commerce majors Flipkart and Amazon alone created over 42,000 temporary jobs during their festive season sales. While Flipkart hired over 20,000 temporary staff as its festive sale approached, Amazon was said to be adding over 22,000 temporary staff, the financial daily added.

As reported earlier, the festive season, which lasts nearly five months starting from Ganesh puja till New Year, requires additional staff to handle the spike in orders and deliveries. The demand is especially high for e-commerce companies, logistics, FMCG, hospitality, retail, supply chain, and transport.

Companies in these industries report almost 40-50 per cent of their total business during the festive period such as Diwali and Christmas and hire a lot of temporary resources, including interns and youngsters from colleges and academic institutions.

Apart from Flipkart and Amazon, demand for temporary workers has surged at companies like Samsung and a number of financial technology companies like Paytm, Mobikwik, and Aditya Birla Money, the Economic Times report said while citing staffing firms. Read More

Paytm, US firm in tech tie-up for payments bank

With a view to launching its payments bank, Paytm has tied up with US-based FIS Global, for technology, say sources close to the company. The bank may come by the second half of the next year.

Sources added the deal would be worth Rs 150 crore and the contract would span five years. FIS is a Fortune 500 company.

Paytm is a mobile payment and commerce platform owned by One97 Communications.  Founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Paytm plans to turn its 120-million wallet users into account holders of its payments bank once it is launched, it is learnt.

User installs 32 apps usually.

Indian mobile users on an average store upto 32 apps on their mobiles, lower than world average of 42 apps as most of the new smartphone users in the country use low-end handsets that carry lesser in-built memory, according to a user trend study report .


Also, most of the users still prefer 2G network to access mobile internet and therefore, they tend to download less apps due to slow internet speed, said the study conducted by 9Apps, an android app distributor.

Most downloaded apps included Whatsapp and Facebook. Majority of apps downloaded were in English language with Hindi language app contributing to 26 per cent of total downloads, the study said.