Can Reliance go forward without Future Retail brands?

Reliance Retail, the retailing arm of India’s largest private company, seems to be readying alternative strategies now that the dispute over its acquisition of Future Retail – the operator of Big Bazaar super market chain – seems headed for a protracted hearing before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal. According to a report in Times […]

Loan request to Amazon was preliminary: Future Retail

Future Retail Ltd, the highly indebted general retailer caught up in a tussle between US-based retailer Amazon and its Indian rival Reliance Retail, said a request made by its independent directors seeking a loan of Rs 3,500 cr was of a preliminary nature. “The communication between Amazon and Independent Directors were of a very preliminary […]

Palred launches India’s cheapest Alexa speaker at 1,799

Palred Tech, which sells IT and entertainment accessories under the pTron brand, has launched India’s cheapest Alexa speaker, priced at just Rs 1,799. The speaker comes with Alexa voice commands, and supports streaming music from services such as Amazon Prime Music, Gaana, Hungama Music, Jio Saavn and so on via wifi. pTron Musicbot Cube will […]

Infosys to introduce Amazon’s Cobalt quantum computing service to clients

Infosys, a prominent supplier of IT services and products to enterprises, said it will explore the use of Amazon’s Cobalt ‘quantum computing’ platform to build quantum computing applications for clients. Quantum computing refers to the use of non-binary technologies to carry out computations. Traditional computers carry out all computations by reducing all data into a […]

Amazon starts Fire TV broadband service in India

Amazon has expanded its Fire brand of devices and software to the service sector with the launch of its Fire TV Hotspot broadband service in India. The company started offering Fire TV branded broadband connectivity in the Indian city of Mumbai — making it possibly the only one in the world to get Amazon branded […]

L&T Tech certified to Alexa-enable devices

L&T Technology Services has been certified by Amazon to put Alexa voice technology into all kinds of devices. Alexa is a voice-interaction technology developed by Amazon, and is quickly emerging as one of the leading standards of voice-based interaction for devices. While it started out as a way to interact with Amazon devices such as […]

Future Retail says no agreement with Amazon

Future Retail, the pioneering modern retail chain founded by Kishore Biyani, today said it will take steps to implement its agreement with Reliance Retail as it is not a party to the agreement quoted by global retailer Amazon to block its merger with Reliance Retail. The agreement is with one of its promoters and group […]

Online grocery hit critical mass in lockdown: HUL

Some of the gains made by the e-commerce sector during the COVID-19 lockdown is permanent and retailing will never be the same again even after the pandemic, said Sanjiv Mehta, chairman and managing director of Hindustan Unilever Ltd. As India’s largest supplier of consumer goods, HUL has a lot at stake in health and longevity […]

Festival Offer: Samsung announces discounts on NVMe, SSD and MicroSD range

Samsung has announced discounts of around 20-40% on its storage devices, including SSDs, NVMe drives, Micro SD cards and pen drives. The discounts are offered as part of Flipkart Big Billion Days and Amazon Great Indian Festival, which start tomorrow. External SSDs On the external storage drive front, it is offering discounts on both its […]

Does VODAFONE IDEA have a FUTURE?

As Vodafone Idea unveils a new brand identity, the financial troubles facing the company has as thrown into question the very future of the Indian telecom operator. There has been speculation that American telco Verizon or online retail giant Amazon may infuse money into the operator, but such rumors have been quashed by the Indian […]

ZEE5 may launch Hotstar VIP-like plan soon

ZEE5, the video app from Zee Entertainment Enterprises, will introduce cheaper plans soon to take on rivals in the market, company CEO Punit Goenka said. “We are working on lighter packs which we will roll-out in the next couple of months,” the CEO said. ZEE5’s annual pack is currently priced at Rs 999. Goenka was […]

Amazon, Flipkart festival sales beat slowdown blues, US firm claims No.1 spot

Amazon, the US-based online retailer, released a bunch of numbers on the final day of its five-day festival sale to paint a surprisingly rosy picture of its performance during the biggest sales event of the annual online calendar. Notable among the numbers was a 15-fold jump in the sales of smartphones during the sale period, […]

Amazon slowed investment into India due to protectionism – Wilbur Ross

US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross today said that e-commerce giant Amazon, one of the biggest foreign investors in India, had scaled down its plans for investments in this country after the government came up with new, protectionist and restrictive ecommerce rules. In what was seen as a nasty blow to the likes of Walmart […]

Flipkart starts rolling out free Amazon Prime-like video service

Flipkart, Amazon’s biggest competitor in India, has started rolling out a video streaming service on its mobile app similar to Amazon Prime Video and Netflix. The service is very similar to other streaming apps, and offers videos classified into different sections based on genres and languages. Both movie and non-movie content are available. Non-movie content, […]

Amazon buys into Quess Corp’s repairing unit

Quess Corp, a provider of logistical, staffing and infrastructural solutions to businesses in India, said it has entered into an agreement with international e-commerce giant Amazon.com relating to investment in and operations of an electronics aftersales company. Though the finer details of the agreement were not revealed, the agreement could be aimed at diversifying the […]

Mukesh Ambani: Reliance Jio To “Shortly Launch” E-Commerce Venture With 3 Cr Sellers

Even as Amazon and Flipkart find their business models crippled by new changes in the law, India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani announced that his upcoming e-commerce venture will partner with 3 cr sellers, making it the biggest such platform in the country by number of sellers. “Jio and Reliance Retail will shortly launch a unique […]

Zee Entertainment to spend heavily on ZEE5, add 4,100 films, 60 webseries

Zee Entertainment Enterprises, the largest Indian broadcasting company, said it plans to raise the number of exclusive movies on its entertainment app ZEE5 to 3,000 as it races to become the No.1 provider of digital content in India. The 3,000 exclusive movies would make the platform one of the biggest, if not the biggest, repository […]

Amazon offers Rs 2,600 cashback on smartphones for Airtel users

Bharti Airtel and Amazon will offer Rs 2,600 cash back over a period of three years for anyone who purchases any of the 65 smartphones exclusively available on Amazon. However, they must make Airtel recharges of Rs 7,000 over a period three years, or about Rs 200 per month. Customers have to buy any of […]