Daybreak

Credit card companies, in their rush to sell more and more cards use a whole gamut of attractive offers—the most popular one being free access to airport lounges. Thanks to this and the sharp rise in domestic air travellers, airport lounges saw of footfall of over 8 million people in 2022.

What was once an exclusive service became a top-selling feature, even for non-premium cards issued by banks. Lounge access became overused and an expensive bill to foot for credit card issuers.

Now, one after the other, major banks are revising their lounge policy. But retracting the freebie altogether is not a risk banks can afford to take.

Tune in.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In today’s special Friday episode, The Ken’s Praveen Gopal Krishnan (aka PGK) joins hosts Snigdha and Rahel to talk about India’s complicated relationship with 10 minute delivery apps. They talk about how these apps are shaping our economy and society at large, and more importantly how we, as users, are shaping them.

Why do we pick a particular app, what makes us switch to another one and what makes us abandon them all together?

PGK asked his readers just that in a recent survey he carried out in his weekly newsletter, The Nutgraf. You can check it out here.

You can also check out the Bangalore floods edition Snigdha mentioned, here.

Listen to Kabir Biswas talk about Dunzo and the quick delivery business on First Principles.

If you're curious about the time everyone except Zepto assumed quick commerce was dying, click here.

P.S Tell us what you thought of this episode.
a) Was the subject interesting enough for you?
b) Did you enjoy the conversation?
You can write to us at [email protected].

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

At the time of demonetisation, the country was desperately seeking an alternative to cash. And a payments regulator called NPCI or the National Payments Corporation of India, was our unexpected knight in shining armour. 

The NPCI managed to launch UPI at just the right time. This was a revolutionary, once in a generation product that really put the NPCI on the map. 

Over the years, UPI also became a huge political asset for the Central Government. That’s evident from the fact that political leaders, including the PM, have made it a point to repeatedly endorse UPI. 

But nearly two general elections later, the pressure is on for the NPCI to come up with a new product, the next UPI. And the NPCI is really feeling the pressure. 

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

New-age D2C mattress brands like Wakefit and The Sleep Company have successfully made orthopaedic mattresses into a mass product. They are changing the landscape of the mattress market in India with their innovative science and tech based approach and clever marketing techniques. 

Wakefit, for example, literally offers a “sleep internship" where all you have to do is "sleep for 9 hours everyday for a hundred days and earn up to 10 lakh rupees."

It's come to a point where even older and bigger mattress makers have had to adapt these changes and start selling these orthopedic mattresses.

But is this really about the science or more about the selling?

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

A couple months ago, Xiaomi released a new product – the SU7. This wasn’t a smartphone, or any other gadget that you would have otherwise associated with the Chinese company. The SU7 is actually Xiaomi’s first-ever Electric Vehicle. 

Now, this is a major milestone for Xiaomi. It has become the first smartphone maker to successfully launch an EV. Funnily enough, this is something that many smartphone makers  and technology companies – from Apple to Samsung – have tried to do but failed at. Until now. 

But what do smartphone makers have to do with EVs?

Tune in to find out.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

By the way, have you listened to The Ken's early careers podcast, The First Two Years? In the latest episode, the show's host Akshaya Chandrasekaran talks about how to navigate work friendships. You can check it out here. 

Indians have really been warming up to credit cards lately. More than a 100 million credit cards are in circulation in India as of now. And this rise has a lot to do with the benefits customers get: cash back deals and reward points that you can collect and redeem for anything from flight tickets to stays at fancy resorts.

But between the two, cashbacks are a more straightforward method of making the most of your credit card. Availing reward points, on the other hand, requires a combination of skill and patience. 

And between the two, there’s one that banks actually don’t like.

Tune in to find out.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

In this week's Daybreak Special episode, hosts Snigdha Sharma and Rahel Philipose speak to The Ken's Shivani Verma about her investigation into Pharmeasy's dubious business practices.

The once IPO-bound company is under the scanner for its 'unethical' ways of upselling alternative medicines and supplements. Everyone – from Pharmeasy's own pharmacists, to the doctors who call behalf of the company to validate a customer's prescription – are under pressure to sell these supplements.

The saga began with Pharmeasy’s 2021  acquisition of Bengaluru-based e-pharmacy Medlife, where former executives noted a similar trend of upselling alternatives and supplements.  This comes amid ballooning losses and immense pressure from investors to show profitability.

So what's the deal? Why is Pharmeasy going down this route?

Tune in to find out.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

P.S. Daybreak episodes drop daily now :)

Thanks to Swiggy and Blinkit, it’s gotten to a point where getting everything – from your groceries to a literal water cooler – delivered to your doorstep within minutes has become pretty routine. Something we expect. 

But there is so much going on behind the scenes to make that delivery possible. Like one executive told The Ken, it’s a combination of solid logistics and precise inventory management.

Pulling that off with just groceries that you can easily throw into a carrier and strap on to a bike is one thing. But then you go and add things like water coolers, mixer grinders, even iPhones to the mix. It sounds like a logistical nightmare. 

But it’s a nightmare that quick commerce apps like Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto have dived headfirst into. They are becoming everything stores, almost like ‘mini Amazons’. And with that, the very nature of quick commerce is changing. 

If you were flying sometime last month, you may have noticed, staff from Digiyatra, the contactless, biometric entry system at airports, were repeating the same thing over and over again to passengers at the entrance: “The old app is discontinued, please download the new app.” Passengers were only given this information at the airport. None of them received any notifications or SMSes.

Apart from inconveniencing passengers, this also sent  alarm bells ringing among some of them. Because, think about it. Usually you're asked to update an app, not delete it and download a new one, right?

Anyway, most attributed it to some kind of a tech upgrade, which was also what Digiyatra Foundation (DYF), the company that runs the app said. Apparently, it was a part of their plan to expand to a larger user base.

But you know what? That’s not the real reason. Behind it all, is a scam.

Tune in.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

P.S. Daybreak episodes drop daily now :)

No other payment aggregator has been able to pull off what Phonepe has in less than a year. 

Its nearly 50 per cent market share is obviously a huge draw for new merchants. And in the last couple years, its been able to onboard some pretty big names like Bharti Airtel and IRCTC. 

But the bigger the client, the more ruthless their demands. At the end of the day, they are only loyal to the aggregator that promises them the lowest prices and highest success rates. 

So how does PhonePe make sure that it stays on top? And where does that leave everyone else? 

Tune in.

Correction: The host mistakenly referred to NPCI as NCPI towards the end of this episode. We apologise for the error.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

P.S. Daybreak episodes drop daily now :)