IndiGo's Aditya Ghosh gets Rs 21-cr incentive after record profit

IndiGo's Aditya Ghosh gets Rs 21-cr incentive after record profit

IndiGo’s President and whole-time Director Aditya Ghosh took home Rs 27 crore in salary, including Rs 20.9 crore in one-time incentive for the financial year ended March 31, 2016.

India’s most profitable airline was also generous in rewarding its 12,000-plus employees who received an average 42 per cent rise in remuneration in FY16.

Ghosh received the incentive “in recognition of his efforts towards the growth and success of the company during the financial year ending March 31, 2016,” the airline said in its annual report.

Ghosh earned Rs 27 crore in gross salary and 700,000 shares in stock options in FY16. In FY15, he had received a gross remuneration of Rs 3.7 crore, according to the airline’s initial public offering prospectus. (more)

Wal-Mart buying Jet.com to lift online sales, battle Amazon

Wal-Mart buying Jet.com to lift online sales, battle Amazon

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, vying to better challenge Inc, will pay about $3 billion for internet retailerJet.com and its innovative pricing software in the largest-ever deal for an e-commercestart-up.

The deal disclosed on Monday follows a five-year e-commerce acquisition spree in whichWal-Mart, the world's biggest traditional retailer, has already bought 15 start-ups, seeking the talent and technology needed to make it a dominant player online and narrow the massive gap with market leader Amazon.

Wal-Mart's online division has underperformed against Amazon, posting its slowest growth in a year in the first quarter as it struggled to gain traction with consumers, especially millennials.

Jet.com was launched by internet entrepreneur Marc Lore in July 2015 and includes software that can offer a customer lower prices as they add items to their shopping cart. Wal-Mart has said it would integrate that software into its main website while keeping Jet.com as a separate entity.

"One of the things we really like (about Jet) is that the customer is even more in-charge of the price that they pay," Chief Executive Doug McMillon said on a media call.

McMillon said Wal-Mart will take time in getting the technology and design components from Jet and that they will grow both brands separately in the short-term.

"Over time, piece-by-piece, we will end up running a business that is simpler and not completely independent."

McMillon said Lore would run its new U.S. e-commerce business. Lore had cofounded Quidsi, the owner of sites like and which was sold to Amazon. more

5 key takeaways from the Infosys results

5 key takeaways from the Infosys results

It does not take the markets too long to analyse Infosys’ results. Within seconds of announcement of the results, the stock price reflects what the market thinks about it. It was a poor start for Infosys for FY17 with the first quarter number missing analysts’ expectation on the revenue front. The markets showed their disappointment by pushing the stock 9% lower. The June quarter numbers came as a surprise, especially when market was getting complacent on Infosys beating expectations as it did in it last four quarters.

Apart from revenue there are some more disappointments in the quarterly numbers. Here are five key takeaways from the Infosys results.

1. The company reported 2.2% QoQ growth in dollar revenues but a 1.7% growth in constant currency terms which was mainly on account of lower volume growth which grew by 2.2% as compared to 2.4% in the previous quarter. Justifying the lower-than-expected numbers, Infosys CEO Dr. Vishal Sikka said “We had unanticipated headwinds in discretionary spending in consulting services and package implementations as well as slower project ramp-ups in large deals that we had won in earlier quarters, resulting in a lower than expected growth in Q1.”Read More

Samsung profit rises on new smartphone technology

Samsung profit rises on new smartphone technology

Six months after it warned that 2016 would be a tough year, Samsung Electronics is showing that new technology and new phones are beginning to pay off.

The South Korean technology conglomerate said on Thursday that its operating profit for the three months that ended in June rose 17 per cent over the same period a year ago. The jump in growth beat analysts' expectations and led to the company's best quarterly profit figure in two years.

At the heart of the recovery is the sustained popularity of Samsung's flagship S7 phone, which analysts say has sold well despite the competitive pressures from Apple. Bolstering that success are steady sales of the company's lower-end phones.

If Samsung's profit growth in the first half of 2016 comes from weathering difficult conditions in the global smartphone markets, analysts say the rest of the year will be more dependent on its lesser-known products: memory components and screen technology.

A potential slump in smartphone sales in the third quarter could be "offset by improving earnings of the semiconductor division and Samsung Display," according to a report from Shinhan Investment Corporation, a Korean securities brokerage. Samsung said that operating profit would be 8.1 trillion won, or about $7 billion, in the second quarter, compared with 6.9 trillion won a year earlier.

The numbers released on Thursday were preliminary; Samsung will post its final earnings later this month. Samsung's new screen technology - which uses what are called organic light-emitting diodes, or Oledss - in its own smartphones has given it a production advantage. Samsung uses that technology, which is more efficient and creates thinner and more flexible screens, to give its Galaxy S7 Edge phones curved edges that create the impression that the screen drops off the side of the device. Read More