- Bit by Bit
- Posts
- Bit by Bit 2nd November ||Maaza is next in line to become a billion-dollar brand||Elon Musk will let you pay $8 to be a verified ‘lord’ on Twitter & more
Bit by Bit 2nd November ||Maaza is next in line to become a billion-dollar brand||Elon Musk will let you pay $8 to be a verified ‘lord’ on Twitter & more
Good Morning! “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
So, here are:
"5 amazing stories in 5 minutes to make you future ready"
Happy reading!
MARKET UPDATE
NIFTY 50 : ₹18,145.04 (+0.74%)
BSE SENSEX : ₹61,121.65 (+0.62%)
NIFTY BANK : ₹41,289.55 (-0.04%)
USD/INR : ₹82.63 (-0.02%)
BRENTOIL : $95.87 (+1.29%)
MCXGOLD : ₹50,575 (+0.14%)
FII Net Cashflow : + ₹2610 crores
DII Net Cashflow : - ₹730 crores
(Markets data as of 8:00 AM on 2/11/2022)
ECONOMY
The Story:
Tuesday marked the official debut of India's central bank digital currency (CBDC), which Mint Road has supported. Several banks used the virtual currency to settle almost 50 government bond transactions totalling about Rs 275 crore.
Three sources with knowledge of the situation informed that among the nine participating lenders that have cut the first CBDC deals for settlement of trades in g-secs are the State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of Baroda, ICICI Bank, and IDFC Bank. The central bank pilot initiative got underway on Tuesday, and nine lenders are participating, including HDFC Bank, HSBC, Kotak Mahindra, and Yes Bank. There are reports of at least four to five deals made by each bank.
Each participating bank maintains a CBDC Account with the Reserve Bank of India, a digital currency account (RBI). Banks must first transfer funds from their respective current accounts to this account. If bank X purchases bonds from bank Y, the CBDC account of X will be debited, while bank Y's equivalent account will be credited.
The CBDC pilot project mandates that every trade be finalized, and invoiced on a "gross basis," in contrast to the current settlement process, in which banks settle transactions on a net basis on a specific platform known as NDS-OM. The digital settlement will take place within the trading day, or T+0, as opposed to T+1 in trades of regular government securities.
If the pilot project is successful, the RBI might expand CBDC's use cases to other wholesale transactions, according to a trader from one of the participating banks. Cross-border and institution-to-institution payments may be some of the potential pockets of future usage. A retail pilot project with CBDC is expected to be launched later.
AUTOMOTIVE
The Story:
Last month, increased customer demand in the local market and easing supply limitations led to a rapid increase in the number of passenger vehicles that automakers sent to showrooms. According to industry estimates, factories sent approximately 337,000 units to dealerships in October, up 29% from roughly 260,000 units a year earlier. Automobile manufacturers in India formally declare wholesale volumes rather than consumer retail sales.
After this year's September and July, when despatches to dealerships totaled 355,000 units and 341,000 units, respectively, this is the third-highest monthly wholesale volume registered in the sector. The recent increase in repo rates has not yet been reflected in retail financing; even though inflation is strong, liquidity levels have decreased, and there is high inflation. We must wait and observe how these issues may affect future growth in demand.
Overall, industry bookings remain between 775,000 and 800,000 units, and sales are anticipated to be high for the rest of the fiscal year.
FMCG
The Story :
Coca-Cola India announced on Tuesday that it is on pace to ensure that its mango drink Maaza hits $1 billion in annual sales by 2024 after reaching the milestone of $1 billion in yearly sales for its Thums Up and Sprite brands.
“We would love to have one juice brand getting into that ($1 billion portfolio) very clearly—that’s our ambition. It may take a little bit longer, may not be by next year. Because one of the issues which happened is that this year, the mango crop has fallen, and the price of mango is obnoxiously high. We have done good work in building operations for Maaza. If it happens, it’s good but definitely, it will happen by 2024; if it happens by 2023 it will be a bonus," Sanket Ray, president for India and South-West Asia, Coca-Cola.
Ray said, "Inflation and currency depreciation are a double whammy. Everything contains a significant amount of PET, which increases. The total commodity cycle is complicated. The revenue management approach and the company-wide cost-cutting initiatives are both being followed, he said. The corporation kept the rates for its 10- and 20-pack sizes while increasing the cost of its products by 3-4% at the beginning of the year, primarily on large pack sizes. Additionally, several packs' consumer promotions were eliminated.
TECH
The Story:
Elon Musk has announced that a new version of Twitter Blue will include verification accessible for $8 per month in the US, with the price “adjusted by country proportionate to purchasing power parity.” He announced the shake-up of the premium service by saying that “Twitter’s current lords & peasants system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit.”
Up until this time, Twitter Blue was a wholly different service that was unrelated to verification. Its key features included viewing articles without advertisements, undoing or editing tweets (in some countries), and customizing your navigation bar. It costs $4.99 per month. You can also use an NFT as your profile photo. Although Musk seems to wish to collaborate with publishers in some way, given the goal to allow Blue subscribers to get around paywalls, the section of the article that was previously ad-free has since been removed as of Tuesday.
It’s also unclear how the verification system will work. Historically, it’s been available to a limited subset of high-profile users who may be imitated as a joke or to spread misinformation. However, Musk has said that he wants to use the system to control bot spam.
Want a BIT More?
The Story:
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) fined Google Rs 1,338 crore on October 20 for breaking the Competition Act. The punishment was issued because Google, with its Android mobile operating system, abused its dominant position in a number of markets. These sanctions were imposed by CCI based on the testimony of three young enthusiasts for the digital economy.
The decision was based on data that Umar Javeed, Sukarma Thapar, and Umar's younger brother Aaqib—all of whom were research associates at the CCI at the time and were all 27 years old—presented to the organisation in August 2018.
The CCI is in charge of fostering competition and prohibiting actions that have a significant adverse effect on market competition. It is India's national competition regulator.
In addition to the penalty, CCI suggested ten remedies for Google, among them the removal of Google's services from Android device makers' pre-installed apps and a restriction on users' ability to delete pre-installed apps.
The CCI launched an investigation into Google's behaviour in the Android mobile device ecosystem in April 2019 after analysing the information provided by the trio. On October 20, 2019, the CCI issued its decision and imposed penalties.
Google's response was that it will review the competition watchdog's findings.
