Arvind's Newsletter

1.The Trent chairman believes the retailer has the potential to grow 10-fold

Trent Ltd, chaired by Noel Tata, is now India's fastest-growing apparel retail chain, enjoying a market capitalization of ₹2,40,903 crore. It has multiple formats including ethnic wear, cosmetics and grocery retail, under its fold, which are being incubated before it is scaled up like Westside and Zudio. Noel Tata was interviewed by Satish John in Mint.Some excerpts from the interview:

“Trent had the opportunity to be 10X its size, but don’t ask me by when. We will continue to grow at pace while always trying to keep our customer proposition and service at the forefront of everything we do. Successful retail is not only a numbers game. There is a saying that “Retail is detail" which is very true. There are an amazing number of moving parts that need to fall in place together to deliver a successful customer proposition.”

“Launching a private label brand differs significantly from launching a multi-brand store format. With Westside, since we chose to be completely own branded, we had to develop the entire product portfolio and constantly evolve it to meet our customers’ acceptance and find properties. Back in 1999, the required competencies for this did not exist, so we had to train and learn on the go. Retailers who today try to pivot to be predominantly private labels will realize how difficult it is.”

“However, when we launched Zudio, we already had all the necessary competencies in place, and we could replicate the Westside processes to a different audience very quickly. Zudio owes a lot of its success to our experience with Westside and the infrastructure we had built.”

2.India has 547 million OTT users but active paid subscriptions remain stagnant at 100 million: Report

547 million is the number of people in India that use OTT platforms, according to a report by media consulting firm Ormax. However, out of this, the number of active paid subscriptions remained 99.6 million, very close to the number of subscribers last year. The report stated that OTT penetration in the country was 38.4%, and 97% of those surveyed used smartphones to watch online video content.

3.Mumbai-Goa travel time to be cut to 6 hours with the new Konkan Expressway.

The Maharashtra Government has proposed a 376 km long, 6-lane Konkan Expressway connecting Mumbai to Goa. The project will reduce travel time to 6 hours and boost tourism in the area.

This new expressway will connect Sindhudurg to Panvel (Navi Mumbai) via Raigad and Ratnagiri. Currently, it takes 12-13 hours to cover the distance between Mumbai and Sindhudurg. With this project, the time will decrease significantly to as low as 6 hours. 

4.Forbidden No More India Begins OK-ing Chinese Proposals

An inter-ministerial panel has cleared five-six investment proposals in the electronics manufacturing sector, which include some pure-play Chinese companies and others with connections to the neighbouring country, people familiar with the matter said.

Prominent names that have recently got approval include Chinese electronics major Luxshare, which is also a vendor for Apple, and a joint venture (JV) between Bhagwati Products (Micromax) and Huaqin Technology, in which the Chinese company will own a minority stake. Other proposals cleared include some Taiwan-based firms listed in Hong Kong or having investments from there.

The government appears to now be slowly opening up for Chinese investment with proper safeguards in place, as it’s of the view that local value addition must increase for self-sufficiency in electronics manufacturing to become a reality. Lets continue to watch this space to see if there is significant thaw in the government approach to Chinese companies or this will primarily be for JVs between Indian and Chinese companies with majority Indian shareholding.

5.Ford Steps Back From EVs—and Says Hybrids Are the Future

The automaker is killing its electric three-row SUV, delaying a next-gen pickup, and committing to future gas and diesel vehicles, citing a lack of consumer interest in full-EV cars.

Ford Motor’s decision this week to kill a highly touted future electric vehicle is a sign that the industry’s pullback on EVs is deepening.

General Motors, Volkswagen, Mercedes and other automakers also have curbed their EV ambitions in recent months. Taken together, the walked-back plans are an acknowledgment that the big investments outlined at the start of the decade got ahead of the consumer’s appetite for a full switch to EVs.

"What we've learned is that customers want choice, and so we're providing that choice, with a full lineup of EVs, hybrid, electric, gas and diesel products," said John Lawler, CFO of Ford.

6.Japan's low birthrate sparks talks of university consolidation

Japanese universities are “facing a critical limit” financially, the country’s national university association warned, as fewer children have led to declining admissions. Only 1.1 million 18-year-olds attended university in 2023 — down from a peak of 2.49 million in 1966, The Japan Times reported, and a government task force is weighing whether to consolidate, downsize, or potentially close dozens of universities, particularly private, rural schools.

The task force this month recommended attracting more international students, but Tokyo’s 2003 partial privatisation of dozens of national universities caused their rankings to plummet, undercutting foreign applications.

7.New Painkiller Could Bring Relief to Millions—Without Addiction Risk

Vertex Pharmaceuticals has been testing a new drug that works differently than opioids and other pain medications.

That drug, a pill called VX-548, blocks pain signals before they can reach the brain. It gums up sodium channels in peripheral nerve cells, and obstructed channels make it hard for those cells to transmit pain sensations. Because the drug acts only on the peripheral nerves, it does not carry the potential for addiction associated with opioids—oxycodone (OxyContin) and similar drugs exert their effects on the brain and spinal cord and thus can trigger the brain’s reward centers and an addiction cycle.

In January Vertex announced promising results of clinical trials of VX-548, which it is calling suzetrigine, showing that it dampened acute pain levels by about one half on that 0-to-10 scale. The company is applying for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the drug this year.