Citrus – Payment Processing Platform With Difference

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Citrus Payment ProcessingCitrus is building a 360-degree digital financial experience across transport (air, taxis, etc.), essential payments (utilities, taxes, insurance, etc.), discretionary payments (shopping, entertainment, etc.) and eventually to consumer credit and social transactions.

Payments have two components: merchants and consumers and the idea of Citrus is to own the transaction between the two of them. Citrus offers a complete payments stack: payment process, business layer and checkout.

Citrus now processes 0.5 mn transactions a day amounting to Rs10 bn in sales a month. FY2016 volume processed was US$1.6 bn. This makes them the second biggest company

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YouTube Revenues to Touch $10Bn in 2016

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YouTube Revenues Cross 10BnAs Per Cisco, Internet video views doubled from 2015 to 2016, and video will account for 80% of all mobile Internet traffic by 2019. Google indicated growth in watch time on YouTube has accelerated and is up at least 50% year over year for three straight years. We believe video advertising will follow usage, and global online video advertising spending is expected to increase $19bn from 2015 to 2018 (per Magna Global) to reach $35bn, creating a big opportunity for video content platforms (FB, Snapchat, etc).

Google does not disclose revenues, but indicated in 2015 that partner revenue was up 50% over last 3 years. Based on Online video ad market growth

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How Big 3 Cloud Computing Platforms – AWS / Azure / Google are Stacked Up Against each Other ?

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AWS Comparison with Azure GoogleEvery industry / vertical has Big 3 companies like we have seen in the past from Automobiles to Software. When it comes to offering Cloud platform, Amazon leads the pack with AWS, Microsoft’s Azure is a distant second and Google is the clear #3. Time to Market and Investments helped Amazon launch Amazon Web Services in 2006 versus Azure and Google Cloud Platform coming on in 2010 and 2013 and Microsoft having since committed more heavily in the space than Google.

The path each company took is different as each player has borrowed from heritage and experience earned from their principal operations to establish their position in the cloud computing landscape. AWS is leveraging its massive scale and commitment

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Reliance Jio 4G LTE / Small Cell Deployment indicate Mobile Data Pricing at 50% Discount to Airtel

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Jio 4G LTE Small Cell DeploymentDue to increased demand in urban areas, a majority of the data rollout is happening through Small Cells. Compared to BTS, small cells costs 30% less to Huawei; however, small cells are selling at the same price vs BTS of nearly INR 1.0-1.2mn, including ancillary cost, due to higher demand. Small cells provide one-third of coverage compared to BTS but due to lower space requirements, they suit the urban network rollout.

Reliance Jio’s network investment and spectrum holdings provide it significantly higher capacity than existing operators, thereby allowing Jio to reduce data rates/MB to less than 50% of the current market pricing led by Airtel. The company’s investments are long term in nature, and not much in the way for short-term

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How Enterprise Workload is Moving to Public Cloud ?

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Enterprise IT Moving to CloudWe believe Enterprise data center workload will continue a steady migration to the Public Cloud because the Public Cloud is more efficient, agile, elastic and is pay-as-you-go, and business users expect these characteristics from their IT infrastructure

Non-mission-critical workload in the Enterprise and SMB workload in general has been moving to the Public Cloud at a steady trickle over the past few years. While the wholesale embrace of the public cloud to run all workloads is still not very common in our view. We expect Enterprises to continue scrutinizing their data center workloads to identify more non-core and temporary workloads that can be moved to

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Slowing growth of Data – Voice Cannibalization in India

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Mobile Data growth has slowed down meaningfully for operators with data ARPU’s flattening out over the past 3 quarters despite the massive rollout of services from operators. While this could have been palatable if the base were high enough, such a slowdown on low data volumes overall is a worrying trend. We believe while realization decline is necessary for increasing usage, education of users and need creation for internet use would be the key to pushing growth of data usage going forward.

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VC / PE Investors Strategic Look for Funding Startups

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ECommerce Investors Eye on GrowthTighter funding has led to exits, consolidation and focus on unit economics. However, those backed by strategic Investors / subsidiaries of overseas players appear better placed. Recent call with a leading private investor highlighted that GMV growth for ecommerce players will be under pressure in the near-term. This is being driven by limitations on marketplaces by new regulations to become compliant with 25% threshold sale limit from single vendor and reducing heavy discounts that were driving significant growth.

Management commentary of Amazon, Rocket Internet and Softbank over last 15 mths highlights diverging thinking even between strategic investors. Amazon/Softbank talk about market potential and plans for continued investing. Rocket Internet (for Jabong) has moved from market share to balancing growth/profitability to profitability now. In fact,

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Local eCommerce – Lessons for JustDial / Entrepreneurs from Baidu Local Express

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Baidu Local ExpressChinese Internet Giant, Baidu has had Keyword based bidding on the lines of Google AdWords for sometime codenamed as Phoenix which Local service platforms still find the bidding system complicated. In October 2015, Baidu launched Local Express, a new simpler marketing platform for local merchants. Its key advantages include:

  1. Ease of use of the marketing interface, without the hassles of choosing keyword price.
  2. Geo-targeting to customers within 5-30 km from merchants, making the marketing campaign more effective
  3. One-stop ad placement displaying across three key traffic platforms on Baidu: Baidu Mobile, Baidu Map, and Nuomi apps. In the past, Baidu search and Baidu Nuomi had separate marketing and services channels
  4. Infrastructure support. Merchants can rely on Baidu Nuomi’s landing page support, and do need to set up their own website.

Local Express currently targets eight local service sectors, including (1) cosmetics, nail polishing, manicure, and pedicure, (2) gym and yoga, (3) talent training, (4) electronics repair, (5) auto services, (6) photography, (7) moving and housekeeping services, and (8) plumbing services. These are also existing categories on Nuomi’s platform. We note that restaurants, KTV, and tourism, are not

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Idea Cellular 4G-LTE Strategy – Win Leadership Circles Only

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Idea Cellular one of the Top 3 Telcos in India has been a subject of critic for being laid-back in its approach on 4G LTE Mobile Data services. Idea invested aggressively in expanding 2G Voice Network and expects the next few quarters for voice rates to remain stable at around present levels and do not see much upside.

What is Idea’s 4G LTE Strategy ?
We all know that Idea Cellular currently occupies the Top or Second Slot in Revenue Market Share in 10 of the 22 Telecom Circles of India – Maharashtra, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, UP (West) and Gujarat. Idea currently earns 75% of its Revenues

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Why didn’t Idea acquire 4G LTE Spectrum Aggressively ?

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Idea 4G LTE SpectrumReliance Jio Infocomm which wants to run an all IP PAN India Telecommunications Network funded from its shady Oil & Gas business is the most aggressive Telco to launch a greenfield operation in the next few months. Airtel, India’s Largest Integrated Telco felt the heat from Jio’s plans and sought approval from its foreign partner / investor SingTel to get aggressive and has so far managed to beat Reliance Jio by being the first operator to launch 4G services.

Idea Cellular management suggested data growth will depend a lot on subscriber growth and the likelihood of ARPU increase is not much. The company suggested that even though c35% of its user base owned smartphones, only c30% were on 3G/4G. Separately management expects the decline in data tariffs to

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