Business

Kolkata: India’s move to check each and every consignment coming in from China will lead to delays and amplify shortages of smartphones, tablets, computers and televisions, said executives of leading brands and contract manufacturers. The disruption in the industry’s supply chain comes at a time when demand for these products is higher than supplies, they said. Three senior industry executives said supplies will be impacted for brands such as Apple, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, RealMe, Lenovo and several online focused brands, as consignments for most of them are currently stuck…

Mumbai: India’s most valuable company Reliance Industries Limited has managed to become net debt-free almost nine months ahead of its set target, thanks to the INR 168,818 Cr fundraising in the last eight weeks. The Mukesh Ambani-led company has raised INR 1.15 Lakh Cr from global tech investors like Facebook, Silver Lake, Vista Equity Partners, General Atlantic, KKR, Mubadala, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, L Catterton and Public Investment Fund by selling less than a quarter for its digital arm Jio Platforms. Reliance Industries’ chairman and managing director Ambani said, “Over…

New Delhi:  The deadly border skirmishes between India-China have cast a cloud over trade relations, which have seen the latter rapidly expand its footprint in the Indian economy, spanning infrastructure, physical goods and hi-tech, with the value of total bilateral trade surging 20% in the last six years, according to official data. At least some of this surge, experts admit, has come at the cost of local industry. Chinese firms have ploughed huge investments into some of the country’s most iconic tech brands, such as the ride-hailing service Ola, a…

  Mozilla and the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) have presented an open letter to Zoom after it said it would require customers to pay for end-to-end encryption. The letter, signed by over 19,000 internet users, says that “best-in-class security should not be something that only the wealthy or businesses can afford.” The video conferencing software saw use boom during the Covid-19 pandemic, as did other video calling applications such as Microsoft Teams and Houseparty. However, comments from its CEO Eric Yuan that the company would not encrypt that conversations for…

Walmart said Monday it was teaming up with e-commerce platform Shopify to expand its online marketplace in a ramped-up challenge to Amazon for third-party sellers. The deal allows the estimated one million US businesses using Shopify’s platform to sell on Walmart.com without using any listing fees. “As we launch this integration with Shopify, we are focused on US-based small and medium businesses whose assortment complements ours and have a track record of exceeding customers’ expectations,” said Jeff Clementz, vice president of Walamart Marketplace. “We’re excited to be able offer customers an expanded…