Facebook Pages now support Polls, Notes and other new features

Facebook, the largest social network on earth, has added several new features to its ‘Pages’ feature, including the ‘Poll’s option that was removed five years ago. Administrators of Facebook pages can now create a poll by clicking on the ‘+’ sign and choosing ‘polls’ as the type for the new post they are able to […]

Tata Tele Maharashtra pre-tax losses narrow as depreciation falls

Tata Teleservices Maharashtra, the listed arm of Tata Teleservices that provides telecom services in Maharashtra and Goa, reported better pretax profit margins for the December quarter thanks to lower depreciation charges. Pretax losses narrowed to Rs 385 cr in Q3 from Rs 392 cr in the Q2 and Rs 489 in the year-ago period. Depreciation […]

RIL’s TV18 acquires majority control of Viacom18 for Rs 128 cr

Reliance Industries controlled media group TV18 Broadcast said it has acquired a controlling stake in Viacom 18, which operates channels such as Colors and Comedy Central in India. The joint venture was formed as a 50:50 partnership in 2007. However, because neither party had a controlling stake, TV18 Broadcast was prevented from showing the revenue […]

Telecom companies surprised by increase in voice calls – DoT Secy

Telecom companies in India have been caught by surprise by the increase in voice calls made by their subscribers in recent months, telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said on Tuesday after attending a meeting with industry officials. “They have been surprised by the two-times growth of voice traffic (since unlimited plans were introduced),” Sundararajan said after […]

Tata Communications joins Oracle’s ‘FastConnect’ network

Enterprises using Tata Communications as their connectivity provider will now be able to send their traffic to Oracle cloud services privately without using the Internet. This is possible after the Indian network provider added support for Oracle’s FastConnect feature. FastConnect was earlier universally available only if you used connectivity from players like AT&T, British Telecom […]

SAP to include HCL’s aviation industry solution in asset management platform

HCL Technologies (HCL) said Germany-based enterprise software giant SAP has agreed to include, and resell, an ‘add on’ that it developed for aviation-related clients as part of a broader solution. The add-on will help clients streamline their ‘maintenance, repair and overhaul’ operations when using SAP’s enterprise asset management or EAM solution. EAM software is used […]

‘What does Jio want?’ Frustrated analyst withdraws rating on Bharti Airtel

Kotak Institutional Equities has withdrawn its rating on Bharti Airtel, expressing concern about what exactly new entrant Reliance Jio is trying to achieve in the market with its relentless price cuts. “What does Jio want,” asked analyst Rohit Chordia in his note withdrawing his rating on Bharti Airtel. “Even as the company’s actions thus far […]

Tech Mahindra reports 13% QoQ jump in PAT due to tight control over costs

IT services company Tech Mahindra reported a 13% sequential jump in its net profit despite modest growth, after it was able to keep costs almost static. Revenue in rupee terms rose 2.2% on quarter. Translated to dollars, it was up 2.5%. Year on year, revenue was up 2.9% in rupee terms and 8.3% in dollar […]

Airtel 4G overtakes Reliance Jio in online search volumes

An analysis of search data from Google has reveals that Bharti Airtel’s 4G service has overtaken Reliance Jio in terms of creating online buzz, as reflected by the number of searches on Google. Bharti’s LTE service, called Airtel 4G, had been totally eclipsed by the launch of Jio in 2016 and was nowhere in the […]

Reliance Jio likely to introduce top-up plans today, 3GB for Rs 51

Reliance Jio, which generates about 70% of India’s mobile Internet traffic, is likely to introduce four data top-up packs today, according to a company source. The company will introduce recharges in four denominations — Rs 11, 21, 51 and 101, which prices data at between Rs 16.83 per GB and Rs 28.16 per GB. The […]

Majesco sued for $10 mln by US customer for breach of agreement

Majesco, the India-based provider of IT solutions to the insurance industry, said its subsidiary has been sued by a customer in the US for $10 mln (Rs 64 cr). In a filing on Sunday, Jan 28, the company said that on Jan 24, its subsidiary Majesco Software and Solutions Inc received a summons with notice […]

Idea-Vodafone set to use 60% of spectrum for 4G, Kapania seen leading

Idea Cellular and Vodafone India will gear their network heavily towards 4G after merger and will also shut down over 60,000 cell sites as part of network optimization, going by the presentation being made by Idea in front of investors. The companies had earlier announced that they would surrender around 6,300 cell sites that are […]

Reliance Jio offers unlimited voice for just Rs 49, intros cheap data top-up plans

Reliance Jio Infocomm said it will provide unlimited free calls and 1 GB of data per day for just Rs 49 per month. It also restarted taking bookings for Jiophone. “This Republic Day will mark the launch of yet another unprecedented plan exclusively for JioPhone users that will ensure affordable services for every Indian. JioPhone […]

Balaji Telefilms ties up with Reliance Jio for content distribution

Balaji Telefilms, the television content producer header by Ekta Kapoor, said it has decided to make its digital content available on various content applications of Reliance Jio. So far, the most of the content was exclusive to Balaji Telefilm’s own app, ALTBalaji, which also competes with Jio’s apps. According to Google’s Play Store, the Android […]

Ind-AS to crimp public sector banks’ growth due to higher provisioning

Public sector banks would need to divert an estimated Rs 63,000 cr, or about 41% of the total money that the government has promised, to meet increased provisioning requirements for loans under the new Ind-AS accounting standard, India Ratings said, adding that this would ‘knock down’ their growth aspirations and hurt market share. Provisioning refers […]

Wipro ties up with Harte Hanks to power ‘marketing-as-a-service’ offering

IT services provider Wipro said it will invest $9.9 million (Rs 63 cr) in marketing consultant Harte Hanks and will jointly offer end-to-end marketing technology services to customers. Harte Hanks specializes in omni-channel marketing solutions including consulting, strategic assessment, data, analytics, digital, social, mobile, print, direct mail and contact center. “Wipro’s investment in Harte Hanks […]

Idea CEO asks Jio, Airtel to cool down, says war won’t help anyone

Idea Cellular CEO Himanshu Kapania sounded a note of caution and urged Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio to stop trying to beat each other by cutting prices. “We don’t want to participate in the present level of price drops,” Kapania said, in the context of the company’s quarterly results. “We are hoping that the volatility […]