Messages

16

Web 2.0 / How eCommerce will Transtion Now ?

« on: September 18, 2021, 04:32:03 PM »

The growth of cross-border eCommerce is a hot topic in the Western markets, especially within the EU free trade zone. Geographic proximity and logistics make it possible for sellers to offer attractive shipping times and convenient returns to not only local buyers but to the entire EU population.

eCommerce marketplaces continue to gain momentum. Marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon have a firm grip on the market as they have long become primary product search engines. They enjoy a significant amount of repeat customers, who come back for best prices,
transparent quality, and easy returns. We expect marketplaces to become the primary shopping destination for almost all product
categories. The exception will be context-rich categories such as luxury goods, interior design, and fashion, where stand-alone shops will have their share of the market.

Mobile eCommerce is now the fastest-growing segment as customers enjoy shopping on the go and increasingly browse shops and place orders on their smartphones or tablets. Its scope is not limited to creating mobile-friendly shop interfaces or separate shopping apps. Rather, its major potential lies in AI applications, augmented reality, voice eCommerce, and customer profiling.

Both online-only players and traditional retailers are developing various multi-/cross-channel strategies to reduce inconvenience and increase customer satisfaction throughout the customer journey. Package delivery boxes and precise delivery times for working people, drone deliveries of time-sensitive products such as medicines as well as same day- delivery services are only a few of many ambitious innovations and optimizations in the area of product and service delivery.

17

Web 2.0 / China World's Largest eCommerce Market

« on: September 18, 2021, 04:28:44 PM »

In 2020, the global eCommerce market was worth US$2.4 trillion. China was the biggest eCommerce market globally, with Gross Merchandise Sales of Whopping  US $1,116 billion. China's eCommerce market growth is fueled by both the increasing purchasing power of the local population and crossborder eCommerce. With revenues of US$411 billion in 2020, the U.S. constitutes the second biggest eCommerce market, followed by Japan with US$105 billion.

Chinese key market players such as Alibaba Group, JD, and Tencent jointly contribute to the comprehensive eCommerce ecosystem in China – and are increasingly penetrating other promising Asian markets such as Indonesia and India. The Chinese population is tech savvy and mobile first, and Chinese eCommerce giants are therefore constantly pushing technology forward. They have diversified into literally every sphere that comes in touch with online retail, from payments to logistics. Current developments in China will - to a large extent – define the next decade's global eCommerce

Many players from both online and offline retail are moving to multi-channel strategies and are continuously reinventing the way we shop online. Expectations are growing rapidly as customers discover more convenience on all levels – be it product customization, mobile-optimized search, quick checkout processes, and/or hassle-free delivery

18

Technology / Explaining relationship between delivery partners and Zomato

« on: September 08, 2021, 08:18:52 PM »

Food delivery is highly complex as food is a perishable commodity, and requires careful handling while maintaining high levels of hygiene and real-time on-demand service. Zomato has invested in building technological and operational capabilities for real-time, demand  forecasting, fleet optimization, estimation of order preparation and food delivery time, and intelligent dispatch technology, enabling optimized matching of orders and delivery partners. Zomato's delivery network accounted for fulfillment of ~95% of orders received on the platform and the rest were delivered by the restaurant partners themselves in FY2021.

Nearly 95% of Zomato’s headcount is hired directly by it (via its small regional offices where riders can walk-in and get employed) and the remainder belongs to hyperlocal delivery companies such as Shadowfax. Zomato sources agents on its own as it doesn’t find the scale it needs in most cities with other logistics companies.

Per the company, it also maintains medical insurance for hospitalization and accident insurance for delivery partners.

How Zomato Does Earnings Management of Delivery Boys ?
Delivery staff is paid on a per order basis (pay is completely variable for delivery agents), and Zomato ultimately tries to control the overall money a delivery agent makes on an hourly basis such that benefits of higher productivity will be retained by the company.

Delivery cost can vary substantially between Tier-I and Tier-II cities as wage expectations of an agent can be very different. For instance, in a Tier 1 city, if a delivery agent devotes 8 hours a day to Zomato for 24 days a month, they would want to make Rs19,000.

The Social Security Code of India
the concept of workers outside traditional employer-employee work-arrangements (including in online and digital platforms such as Zomato), such as "gig workers" and "platform workers" and provides for the mandatory registration of such workers in order to enable them to avail benefits of life and disability cover, health and maternity benefits, old age protection etc.

19

SmartPhones & Apps / Subscription Services of Food Delivery Apps

« on: September 06, 2021, 04:20:39 PM »

Food Delivery Apps indicated that subscription programs are improving consumer retention; driving higher ordering frequencies and helping in expansion of non-food categories. Food-techs therefore continue to push subscriptions despite an impact on revenue per order. Consumers are also increasingly joining these programs due to bundled benefits such as better value proposition, wider selection and quality options. In India, Zomato recently launched Zomato Pro Plus subscription program (presently an invite-only program) that promises unlimited free deliveries to its members (refer media report), while also retaining all the existing benefits of Zomato Pro subscription program. Swiggy too runs its own subscription program called Swiggy Super that offers free deliveries and incremental incentives.

Swiggy too saw strong growth momentum in Jun’21 with daily order volumes growing 2.5x on a YoY basis (~1.5mn orders per day in Jun’21). We expect near-term tailwinds such as reopening of corporate offices and upcoming sports events (such as IPL and T20 World
Cup) to continue to drive strong order volume growth for the industry.

20

5G / Wi-Fi / How do you define 5G ?

« on: September 04, 2021, 02:10:49 PM »

5G is next generation wireless broadband access technology, which promises higher data capacity, high data speed (>10Gbps peak , 100 Mbps everywhere), low latency (<1ms), high reliability and low power consumption vs. 4G. 5G is expected to offer better economics as it can potentially reduce data costs per GB to almost 1/10th of 4G.

5G capabilities could open up opportunities for new use cases like autonomous cars, wireless broadband/fixed wireless, and IoT machine to machine communication, which could find applications in various industries like health care, education, and mining as well as be an incremental revenue stream for telco and non-telco over the next few years.

21

Web 2.0 / Tech enables Fractional Real Estate Ownership

« on: September 03, 2021, 02:24:58 PM »

Fractional ownership, a concept where the ownership of an underlying asset is divided among multiple investors thereby lowering capital requirements and facilitating larger participation. Each investor owns a fraction (or a small percentage) of the underlying property. It enables investors to purchase property across regions and ticket sizes and benefit from rental yields and capital appreciation.

There has been the advent of several prop-tech start-ups such as
Assetmonk,
BRIKitt,
Fracsn,
Grip Invest,
Myre Capital,
Propertyshare,
RealX and
Strata in India.

These start-ups act as aggregators of properties and charge a fee for selling the asset to the investor. The technology required to  onboard an asset after technical and financial due diligence as well as the ability to bring investors on the platform has become a key differentiator. Fractional ownership offers an easy way to buy commercial real estate like one would a financial asset, significantly
expands investor reach and reduces compliance burdens.

22

SmartPhones & Apps / TikTok Ban to help other Social Apps

« on: August 18, 2020, 10:30:09 AM »

India removed TikTok and other Chinese apps from their app store because of stealing data of Indian nationals. Following India's bold ban, Trump told reporters that he could ban TikTok from operating in the US through emergency economic powers or an executive order. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday that there was bipartisan agreement that TikTok could not stay in its current format, citing the risk of sending user data back to China on 100mn Americans.

Snap ad manager data suggests MAUs in India have risen 23%, vs +7% in the comparable period pre-ban. We believe an outright ban of TikTok would be a significant tailwind to all social media applications as they would: 1) likely launch similar applications and see an engagement boost; and 2) ease potential pricing pressure related to TikTok's recent self-serve ad launch in the US. We see this scenario as unlikely as press reports indicate Trump has given TikTok 45 days to negotiate a deal.

As far as continued TikTok operations on Microsoft's cloud, we think the US government is unlikely to trust TikTok the protection of US data, and will require a spin-off. Also, on a high level, intervention by the US government will discourage US investment by Chinese companies, a positive for US and other Internet companies worldwide.

23

5G / Wi-Fi / What is Difference between ORAN Vs 5G Standard Gear ?

« on: August 17, 2020, 05:37:55 PM »

Some Telcos don't liek to pay for the R&D of Telecom Gear Makers. With the advancement of innovation in Wireless Radio & Computing, together backed by Open Source developers, Telecom players want to deploy ORAN [Open Radio Access Network] Vs the 5G Standard Equipment Developed by companies such as Samsung / Ericsson / Nokia etc

The primary difference between ORAN and traditional gear-makers is that the latter follow the 3GPP standards. For 5G, it is the 3GPP Release 15. The standards are a set of stipulations about different aspects of the network's delivery to customers - for instance, speed, bandwidth requirement and other parameters of service quality. Each equipment maker will attempt to differentiate itself by choosing to improve over the 3GPP standards. In ORAN, the 3GPP standards may either not be followed or perhaps only partially followed. This creates the problem of non-standardisation.

Telecom Networks globally will co-exist with 4G and 5G, thus interoperability between the technologies will also become essential in the years to come. However, the 5G ORAN is recent and therefore, its backward compatibility with standardised 4G networks cannot be taken for granted.

Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung have deep experience in setting up and managing large networks with thousands of towers, which the ORAN-based solutions will not be able to match for some time.

ORAN will be a cheaper solution, because the hardware is already a commodity and the software is now increasingly being written by many developers. While 5G Gears sold Commercial Off the Shelf by companies such as Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung etc will come at a cost.

24

FTTH Broadband / Traffic Trends of Indian Internet Business

« on: August 17, 2020, 12:48:21 PM »

In e-Commerce, while Amazon India desktop & mobile-web traffic grew 8% MoM, it was down 6% MoM for Flipkart

Traffic trends for all major real estate classifieds except Housing were broadly flat MoM.

Recruitment classifieds monthly traffic trends improved 2% MoM in Jul 20, with Naukri / Indeed reporting improvement of 3%/1%, respectively while trends were flat for Monster India.

Sequential traffic trends for matrimonials improved 4% in Jul 20, with Shaadi and Matrimony reporting 9%/3% MoM growth, respectively. However, traffiic was down 3% MoM for Jeevansathi.

Amongst, B2B/B2C classifieds, IndiaMART reported 8% MoM improvement in traffic, while Just Dial’s traffic was down 2% sequentially.

In Food Delivery, Zomato reported a 12% MoM growth in desktop & mobile web traffic as per Similarweb data compared to a decline of 3% for Swiggy.

25

Web 2.0 / Which are the Companies Acquired by IndiaMart ?

« on: August 14, 2020, 07:30:04 PM »

IndiaMart acquired 26% stake in a Bangalore based start-up ? Simply Vyapar Apps (Vyapar), in Sep 2019, for Rs312m. This values the startup at ~Rs1.2bn, which generated revenue of ~Rs14.2m in FY19. Vyapar provides both ? mobile-basedand desktop based ? business accounting software with billing, GST invoice, stock inventory and accounting solutions. [We believe this acquisition was at a considerable premium]

In May 2020, IndiaMart acquired 8.98% stake in Mobisy Technologies (Bizom) for Rs100m, valuing the company at Rs1.1bn. Bizom provides sales force automation and distributor management systems to medium & large businesses. It generated revenue of Rs280m in FY19, clocking 65% CAGR in two years.

26

4G / LTE / Airtel 4G Data Usage Per Customer Highest

« on: August 10, 2020, 11:00:18 AM »

In a quarter marred by the lockdown, 2mn 4G subscriber additions and 12% QoQ data volume growth indicate smartphone users’ preference for Airtel 4G LTE network as well. Data volume growth was strong at 12% QoQ, taking data consumption further up to 16.6GB, from 15GB per customer. We believe Airtel's highest-in-the-industry data usage per customer would further drive up ARPU going forward.

In our view, Bharti's ability to garner smartphone subscribers despite its premium pricing will aid revenue market share as this segment has the highest propensity to pay and would benefit operators the most, should tariffs rise or the industry consolidate.

We attribute the 50bps QoQ increase in EBITDA margin to lower subscriber acquisition cost and marketing spends, some of which are likely to resurface.

27

Smart Connected Devices / Oppo Mobile Sales in India

« on: August 08, 2020, 04:44:01 PM »

Oppo Mobiles India Pvt Ltd are the owners of Oppo SmartPhones  popular brand in India.

Did you know what is the sales of Oppo Mobiles Pvt Ltd for the year ending March 2019 ?
It is a whopping Rs 217,235 Million which is equivalent to Rs 21,723 Crore. The sales of the company for FY 2018 was Rs 12,048 Crore.

Oppo Mobiles India Pvt Ltd is Run by a 33 Year Old Shan He a Citizen of the People's Republic of China

If Oppo Mobile Smart Phone Sales is about US $3 Bn , guess and read the sales of Xiaomi India Pvt Ltd.

28

Web 2.0 / Olx Classifieds Financial Balance Sheets

« on: August 03, 2020, 03:41:40 PM »

Olx India classified sites at the end of FY 2019 had a Total Income of Rs 399 Crore [FY 2018 Rs 179 Crore]

Total expenditure has been RS 365 Cr and Rs 155 Cr for FY 2019 and FY 2018 respectively.

Net Profit has been Rs 22 Cr and Rs 15.59 Cr for FY 2019 and FY 2018 respectively.

29

Web 2.0 / Grofers + Flipkart Focus on Hyper Local Delivery

« on: August 01, 2020, 06:22:49 PM »

We have indicated earlier that hyper-local delivery companies are witnessing better unit economics amidst lockdown as also clarified in case of Zomato and Grofers. Most of these players are expecting a sizeable part of this improved unit economics to stay put even after lockdown lifts and is the likely reason for Grofers to pre-pone its plan for IPO. The key metrics to monitor however, would be the trend in delivery costs (and charges) and average take rates in our view.

Flipkart has launched instant hyper local delivery services in Bengaluru to deliver grocery, dairy products and vegetables, mobiles, electronics and home accessories. Bengaluru is generally considered a traffic-heavy city and a quick-delivery pilot here would build a clear picture for Flipkart whether the model can be replicated elsewhere. In our view, the road infrastructure support in Indian cities is not favorable for such models and many companies have in the past tried but failed to create a sustainable business model. Other competitors working on this model include Swiggy Stores, Dunzo (Google-backed) and BigBasket's "Express Delivery" service.

30

Technology / How to Prevent Windows from Opening Excel in Startup ?

« on: August 01, 2020, 09:19:27 AM »

In quest for early release, Microsoft started following Google's Software Engineering Policy of having no SDETs. In this process, Microsoft has been shipping untested products which cause difficulties. For example, Windows 10 Professional version opens up more thna a dozen EXCEL blank files on startup, even though EXCEL Program is not in the startup. It is a result of some other DLL calling the program.

The only solution to this is

Go to Settings>Accounts>Sign-in options

Scroll down until you find Privacy, under it, turn off Use my sign-in info to automatically finish setting up my device after an update or restart.

Reference: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/6f623bde-435b-44ba-997c-c0766c522a37/how-to-stop-ms-word-opening-automatically-at-the-startup-of-computer?forum=Office2016ITPro