BookMyShow has its share of testing times since its birth back in 1998. The last one came as the pandemic and brought the platform down to its knees. Year-on-year revenues fell to one seventh in FY21 and it had to cut down its employee size from over 1500 to just a little over 500.

To everyone's surprise, however, BookMyShow managed to not only survive but also recover quite swiftly.

But now, the company wants to become more than just a movie ticket-selling platform. It want to win the live events game. 

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After its listing, investors were almost bullish about Nykaa shares. And for good reason. The company has been a pioneer in normalising buying beauty and cosmetic products online. It showed profitability that the other listed tech companies were nowhere close to.

So in 2018, it decided to venture into fashion.

But things have been a bit shaky since last year. A week ago, Nykaa gave its investors a “revenue update” for the last quarter and it did not paint a very pretty picture. The company blamed the pullback in discretionary spending for the subdued growth in its fashion business.

This, however, is not the first time fashion has been the source of concern for the beauty and personal care e-commerce giant.

Was Nykaa's foray into fashion worth the risk?

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Phone calls from Bajaj Finance offering loans are almost inescapable and lately, the non-bank has been facing quite a backlash for it.

But telecalling has been an enduring sales channel for the company which boasts of a loan book worth $28 billion. And despite the massive size of its loan book, it's been growing at 30% for years. Now this rate is seeing a dip through.

Bajaj needs to maintain a 26-27% growth rate. Meanwhile, shifting its loan sourcing to its digital assets is going to take a while.

So those pesky calls are unlikely to stop anytime soon.

In this episode, we take a closer look at this Bajaj Finance's annoying but successful system of tele-calling.

According to a survey by S&P, more than 75 per cent of Indian adults do not understand basic financial concepts. The gap is more when it comes to women. 80%.   

So the rise of financial influencers who simplify complex financial jargon and provide investment advice is not really surprising. But often, they underplay risks  and overplay returns, and try to ride the market waves.

In fact, SEBI, the market capital regulator, has been receiving many complaints and is working on creating a framework of strict guidelines to bring them under its control.

But reining these 'finfluencers' in is a bit of a catch-22 situation.

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With the digital streaming rights to IPL gone and the recent losses it posted, India's undisputed OTT leader is trying to figure out a new strategy to stay on top of the game.

As other OTT platforms around the world are consciously choosing to spend less on original programming, Disney+Hotstar is doing the opposite in India.

But is it enough to make up for the 30 million viewers it would get on average every day when the IPL was on?

Tune in to find out.

India’s patent office decided to reject pharma giant Johnson &Johnson’s appeal to extend the patent for a life-saving TB medicine called bedaquiline which is used to treat those with drug resistant infections. 

But for a long time before this, Johnson & Johnson was enjoying a monopoly in India. Generic manufacturers could not make this life-saving medicine. The Indian government too, at the time, had decided to protect the pharma giant.

Not just that, Johnson & Johnson was also conveniently projecting itself as a charitable organisation through its health programmes.

What does the Indian govt’s decision mean for TB patients in India now?

If you had to compare all the online payment methods available to us, digital wallets like Paytm have gone through the roughest of waters.  From being the life-saver during demonetisation to being left behind by UPI, digital wallets haven't had it easy.

But last week, UPI parent NPCI released a circular about the use of digital wallets that brought a ray of hope albeit after a bit of confusion. It had to do with certain charges being levied on transactions over Rs 2,000.

How could it work as a shot in the arm digital wallets and who is actually going to pay these new charges?

Diclaimer:
*Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma is an investor in The Ken.
*The Ken has been part of multiple programmes initiated by GPay parent Google for news organisations globally, including, most recently, its 2022 APAC Innovation Challenge.

With the IPL set to begin today, a few days ago Jio announced a move that many say could be the next big disruption. The Reliance Group, which has the digital rights of the event, is streaming the games for free on its OTT platform, JioCinema.

The main goal is to get people to switch the traditional way of viewing cricket, especially IPL, from TV to digital streaming.

So on 27 March, Jio launched its most affordable fixed broadband plan yet. The plan offers unlimited data at 10 Mbps for Rs 198 per month. Before this, Jio was giving fixed broadband customers 30 Mbps bandwidth for Rs 399 a month. 

Will the new broadband plan get enough viewers to switch to digital streaming? 

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The Indian government has set an ambitious goal with the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) program for mobile-phone manufacturing. By 2026, it aims to push the country's annual exports to a whopping $300 billion.

The idea is to boost large-scale manufacturing and to support domestic phone makers to become globally competitive.  

But of the six companies that made the cut to claim the scheme's incentives, only two are Indian.

Why is “Make in India” attracting more foreign phone makers than Indian ones?

Tune in to find out.

 2023 has been declared the International Year of Millets after India, the largest producer of millets in the world, moved a resolution in the UN General Assembly.

The Prime Minister himself has been promoting the use of millets as a staple through various channels like Mann Ki Baat and the Global Millets Conference that was recently held in the national capital.

But making what were once called 'coarse grains' as the next big food trend is riddled with challenges and will take more than declaring 2023 the year of millets.

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