- Arvind's Newsletter
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- Arvind's Newsletter
1.Land, power and skill: Inside the high-stakes battle to build the next Foxconn City
Foxconn has already invested $10 billion in India. Now, it wants to expand and establish large campuses. Apart from factories, these mini-cities would host residential facilities, recreational areas, hospitals and schools. Four Indian states are eyeing this investment.
In August this year, a massive industrial housing complex at Vallam Vadagal, near Sriperumbudur, spread over 20 acres and costing ₹706 crore, was inaugurated by M.K. Stalin, Tamil Nadu’s chief minister. He was accompanied by Young Liu, the chairman of Hon Hai Technology Group (Foxconn).
The complex was built by the State Industries Development Corporation and today houses 18,720 women who work at the mobile phone production facility. In time, it could become India’s first ‘Foxconn City’, a model popular in China. Foxconn has established large campuses in China that not only run plants but are also living spaces. There house residential facilities, recreational areas, hospitals and schools. Since large-scale factories are typically located outside urban areas, these campuses promise better quality of life for workers during their off-hours.
The Tamil Nadu government and other state governments appear more than willing to collaborate. At present, Foxconn runs operations in three Indian states—apart from Tamil Nadu, there is Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Factories in these states assemble everything from smartphones and telecom equipment to television, displays and electric vehicle components.
Read on.
2.How Toyota made 10 years of profit in a single year in India
FY24 was a remarkable year for Toyota in India. Sales were up 66% year-on-year. Operating profit jumped 2.5X to nearly INR6,000 crore. The Japanese car makers’ profits in FY24 equalled the combined profits of the previous 10 years.
Toyota’s old warhorses in India – the Innova and the Fortuner – now generate significantly more revenue compared to a few years ago. On the other hand, the partnership with Suzuki has made the Toyota brand more affordable for the average buyer. The rebadged Suzuki models, priced between INR7 lakh and INR20 lakh, complement Toyota's own popular models that range from INR19 lakh to INR51 lakh.
3.October CPI Data: India's Retail Inflation Rises To 14-Month High At 6.21%
India's retail inflation hit 6.21% in October, exceeding the central bank's target, mainly due to rising vegetable, fruit and oil prices. This increase, up from 5.49% in September, topped Bloomberg economists' median forecast of 5.9%, according to data by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
The Reserve Bank of India aims for 4% inflation, allowing a 2% margin. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and fuel, reached a 10-month high of 3.7%. Cereal prices rose 6.94%, while meat, eggs, milk, and pulses saw modest increases, marking a 14-month inflation peak.
4.Overcoming Overwork
In Harvard Business Review, Malissa Clark, an associate professor at the University of Georgia, explains how to overcome overwork, and shares some ways to practice psychological detachment. With Thanks to Team Founding Fuel for pointing this article out.
She writes: “Our bodies are not physically able to remain in constant fight-or-flight mode. Part of a healthy stress response is the eventual calming down of our regulatory systems, which allows us to return to homeostasis. Research definitively shows that when we rest and engage in recovery activities, we have better well-being, particularly when we have a lot on our plates.
Unfortunately, workaholics have told me that even sleep becomes “a nuisance” and “a waste of time,” and they are almost annoyed that it can’t be engineered out of their lives. Rest when they are not sleeping feels doubly foolish because, in their minds, it’s not necessary. However, as burnout management coach Emily Ballesteros put it to me, “The only time you rest should not be when you are dead asleep. You have to have rest in your waking hours.”
Drawing on the work of Sabine Sonnentag and Charlotte Fritz, Clark offers four ways to deal with it. Here’s a summary:
Non-work activities: Engage in hobbies or interests that capture your attention, such as reading, watching TV, or socializing.
Physical activity: Exercise or participate in sports, which is particularly beneficial for workaholics.
Relaxation techniques: Practice meditation, yoga, or simple relaxation exercises to reduce stress and lower physiological arousal.
Mastery experiences: Pursue challenging non-work activities that promote personal growth and learning, like learning a new skill or improving an existing one.
5.Inside VW and Rivian’s $5.8 bn bet to rescue each other
The world’s second-largest car manufacturer and the Silicon Valley startup see their partnership as essential for survival in an increasingly competitive market: VW wants Rivian to help it make up lost ground in EV technology, while the latter is looking to expand its manufacturing capacity.
VW gets much-needed technology and Rivian gets much-needed cash.
According to terms completed this week, VW will invest up to $5.8 billion in Rivian stock and a joint venture—up from a $5 billion deal value envisaged when the collaboration was announced in June. In return, the German company gets access to a blend of onboard computing and software that Rivian spent billions of dollars to develop for its own vehicles.
Meanwhile the EV market is booming: Despite trade restrictions on Chinese-made cars, global sales of EVs rose by 35% in October from the same month last year, buoyed by 54% jump in sales in China.
6.Elon Musk, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella top Fortune's annual list of 100 most powerful people in business
The top 10 of the list also includes Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and Sundar Pichai. The only Indian business man in the list is Mukesh Ambani at No 12.
7.Samantha Harvey’s ‘beautiful and ambitious’ Orbital wins Booker prize
Orbital by Samantha Harvey, the only British writer shortlisted this year, has won the 2024 Booker prize, the UK’s most prestigious prize for fiction.
Harvey’s tale of six fictional astronauts on the International Space Station was “unanimously” chosen as the winner after a “proper day” considering the six-strong shortlist, according to judging chair, the artist and author Edmund de Waal. “Our unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition. It reflects Harvey’s extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share”.
8.Bitcoin rises above $90,000
The price of one bitcoin rose above $90,000 for the first time on Wednesday, as the world’s largest cryptocurrency continued to surge following last week’s election of US president-elect Donald Trump.
Its price reached $91,700 by about 9.50am Eastern time.
The token, which was trading around $70,000 on election day, has repeatedly pushed higher in the past week. Bitcoin’s “market capitalisation” is now nearly $1.8tn.
Trump’s victory has emboldened cryptocurrency investors to take ever bigger bets, in the hope that the Republican’s administration and allies will create a more favourable environment for bitcoin and other tokens.
9.India’s startup scene is picking up speed again; The Economist
Visitors to Bangalore, India’s tech hub, quickly learn why locals measure distances in minutes and not kilometres. The city’s clogged streets turn every outing into a test of patience. Other large cities in the country are just as bad. So it is no surprise that Indians are getting everything from biryanis and books to mangoes and mobile phones delivered straight to their doors—often in under ten minutes. “Quick commerce” is a booming business in India. Zomato, the largest company in the industry, is valued at $26bn; its share price has nearly doubled this year. Swiggy, its closest rival, is expected to go public on November 13th at a valuation of $11bn. Zepto, another competitor founded in 2021, is now worth $5bn.
India’s startup scene has had a difficult few years, as funding dried up and once high-flying firms crashed back down to earth. Yet quick commerce’s success may mark the start of a wider revival, fuelled by consumers’ growing appetite for digital purchases and by the country’s vast engineering workforce.
Back in 2021 investors poured $35bn into Indian startups, more than the amount in the previous three years combined, according to Tracxn, a research firm (see chart). That year minted 40 Indian unicorns (unlisted startups valued at over $1bn). But as interest rates rose, the money dried up. In 2023 investment by venture capitalists (VCs) in startups fell below $8bn; only two firms joined the unicorn herd. As companies focused on preserving cash, layoffs and bankruptcies became common, with over 35,000 startups shutting down in 2023.
The funding slowdown also exposed lax governance at some prominent Indian startups. In January the banking arm of Paytm, an Indian fintech giant, was ordered by India’s central bank to stop all services owing to “persistent non-compliance” with its rules. Byju’s, an education-technology firm once worth $22bn and now on the brink of bankruptcy, has faced allegations of aggressive sales practices and accounting irregularities (its founder denies the charges).
Although venture funding this year is on track to reach a level similar to last year, there are signs of a revival in India’s startup scene. One promising area is e-commerce. Online shopping currently makes up just 7% of India’s retail sales, but its potential is big. Redseer, a consultancy, projects that e-commerce sales in India will grow from $65bn in 2023 to $230bn by 2030. It helps that India’s affluent class—defined as those earning over $10,000 annually—is expanding. Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, predicts that it will swell from 60m in 2023 to 100m in 2027.
E-commerce in India has so far been dominated by two American giants: Walmart, through its ownership of Flipkart, and Amazon. Recently, though, they have lost ground to local upstarts that are tailoring their services to the domestic market.
Quick commerce has proved especially popular in India’s densely packed cities, where drivers can deliver goods speedily to many customers living in close proximity to each other, making it cheaper than in cities elsewhere. Having first focused on food and groceries, companies such as Swiggy now sell everything from electronics to clothes as consumers have become more comfortable buying from them. Meanwhile, Meesho, an online marketplace that integrates with social-media platforms such as WhatsApp, has found success targeting India’s smaller cities. Morgan Stanley, another investment bank, estimates that the e-commerce firm now has more active users on its mobile app than Amazon does in India.
A second area of promise is the small but growing number of “deep tech” startups in India working in complex fields like space and robotics. Saurabh Chandra, founder of Ati Motors, a startup that builds autonomous robots, says that access to a vast pool of cheap engineers gives firms such as his more time for research and development before they run out of cash.
The final area of excitement in India’s tech scene is artificial intelligence (AI). Some startups, such as Sarvam AI, are building AI models in various Indian languages. Sajith Pai, an investor at Blume, a VC firm, believes that a bigger opportunity for India will be to develop business software that incorporates the technology, drawing on the country’s long-standing experience of providing offshore IT services to Western companies. Tie-ups with Indian outsourcing giants such as TCS and Wipro could also help Indian AI startups sell their software overseas.
Venture investors are betting that this new startup wave will fare better than the last, with good reason. Indian startups are now less likely to be Western copycats and more likely to be designed around the specific needs and strengths of their country. The road ahead for India’s techies is clearing, even if Bangalore’s streets are not. ■