Daybreak

The launch of Chinese video content platform Tiktok in 2017 changed the social media landscape forever. The short video format became all the rage. Despite TikTok being banned in 2020, the format stayed and a range of Indian short-video apps came up.

Content creators from small towns and cities joined such platforms and for many it became a dependable source of income. Some were making as much as Rs 1 lakh a month.

But now, with advertisers slashing their budgets, platforms such as Moj and Josh are ending their exclusive deals with content-creators.

What seemed like a viable career option for thousands across the country is no longer the same.

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The initial public offering ((IPO) of Mankind Pharma Ltd opened for subscription on 25th April and closed just yesterday. The pharma major is reportedly eyeing a valuation of over $6.7 billion.

But in recent years, the Indian stock market has not been very kind to pharmas that have been listed. Since 2010, 17 of them have had IPOs, but four have delisted. Of the remaining, half are trading below their listing price.

Amidst this and the current economic state that is making many postpone their IPOs, Mankind still went ahead with its plan. Why?

Tune in to find out. 

In February this year, Vodafone Idea gave away a 33% stake to the Indian government and the government converted a part of its dues into equity. Many analysts though think even this cannot save the sinking telco.

Because the company still owes the government $23 billion and banks $1.5 billion. And it also needs $6 billion for an all-India network upgrade to roll out 5G.

Vodafone Idea has too much to deal with—a towering mountain of debt, a ruthless giant of a rival, and the merger with Idea that turned out to be a bad decision.  

In today's episode, we look at the possible outcomes of how the saga of the struggling telco could end.

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Ever since they came up a little less than a decade ago, e-pharmacies have been fighting a constant battle. On one hand there is the severe pushback from traditional pharmacy lobbies and on the other, the lack of a regulatory mechanism.

It was only in 2017 that the government officially acknowledged their existence. It was a small win, but a win nonetheless. But the draft e-pharmacy rules that the government came up with a year later were never notified.

Despite this, e-pharmacies continued operating and their importance was only highlighted further during the pandemic.

But in February this year, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) sent show-cause notices to 20 e-pharmacies. These included Tata 1mg, Amazon, Flipkart, Reliance Retail-owned NetMeds, MediBuddy, Practo and Apollo.

However, e-pharmacies are here to stay.

Tune in to find out more

In 2020, Google invested $4.5 billion  in Reliance's Jio Platforms for a 7.7% equity. The flagship product of this alliance was a budget friendly 4G smartphone priced at Rs 6500 called JioPhone Next. The idea was to make the internet more accessible to millions of more Indians.

When it was launched, the telco was expected to sell at least 20 million devices in a year. But so far, it has sold only 2 million.

A tech giant and a telco giant coming together to make a pocket-friendly smartphone--the plan sounded perfect. What could've gone wrong?

Tune in to find out.

The Blinkit delivery workers' strike that began last week has brought the spotlight back on the delivery personnel crisis in India. Just last year in July, Swiggy’s delivery partners in Bangalore too had gone on strike. Their issues range from wages to the lack of basic employee benefits.

With an IPO scheduled for 2024 and its 1000 plus crore rupee investment in the bike-taxi company Rapido, the stakes were high for the food delivery platform. It had to find a solution and it had to be soon. So, it came up with a plan.

It gave its delivery personnel the option to double as bike-taxis during non-peak hours. This was to incentivise them for doing more work in a day and also retain them during peak hours.

But can a food delivery rider deliver meals and also ferry people?

Tune in to find out.

(Edit note: Earlier, we mistakenly said Swiggy's investment in Rapido was 100 crore rupees instead of 1000 crore rupees. The error is deeply regretted)

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?

Tune in to find out. 

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.

Tune in.