Tatas raise the EV game with attractive price on high level localization

                                                             With the introduction of the compact Nexon EV SUV,which is targeted at personal buyers,the company is expecting its sales of EV models to double in the next fiscal year starting April 2020,president of electric mobility and corporate strategy shailesh chandra told ET.

                                                                    Tata Motors strategy of adopting a very competitive pricing strategy for the Nexon EV will prompt its rivals -Maruti Suzuki India,Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) to price their offers in a manner that it attracts buyers.  Electric Vehicle (EV) has been a key deterrent among buyers because of different models and ranges and pricing. Price starting from 13999000 to 1599000. Nexon is the first EV offering in the mass sports utility vehicle segment. 

                                                        Maruti will be taking wraps off the electric variant of the Wagon R at the Auto Expo next month.MG Motors launched its EV vechile, the ZS. Tata Motors will introduce four more EV models ,including two SUVs, a sedan and a hatchback ,over the next two years. Associate director at IHS Market,puneet Gupta said that combination of electric and SUVs at a competitive price bodes well for Tata Motors and it will gain from the first-mover advantage in the mass SUV segment. The Nexon EV offers a range of 312 km on a single charge and boasts of an efficient high-voltage system,fast charging capability. And more than 30 connected features. The model goes on sale from across 60 authorized dealership in 22 cities, starting Tuesday.

India's online food delivery industry to touch $8-bn mark by 2022: Report

Rapid digitisation and growth in both online buyer base and spending will help India's online food industry to become a $8 billion market by 2022 -- growing at a CAGR of 25-30 per cent, a new report said on Tuesday.The report by Google and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) revealed that variety in cuisines (35 per cent) was one of the top reasons for recurrent use of online food ordering apps, followed by good discounts and convenience."Food tech has now made its presence in greater than 500 cities in India and with consumer confidence growing, there are new opportunities for the players to 'win with the consumer' in an evolving market,'" said Roma Datta Chobey, Director-Travel, BFSI, Classifieds, Gaming, Telco & Payments, Google. Peer or network advocacy (52 per cent) played a critical role in drawing people to try online food ordering for the first time.

This was followed by advertisements (19 per cent) that emerged to be a strong driver in metros and among the higher income groups across the country. "Overall online spending in India is rising rapidly and expected to grow at 25 per cent over the next five years to reach over $130 billion," said Rachit Mathur, Managing Director and Partner, India Lead of BCG's Consumer & Retail Practice. "Riding on the wave of rapid digitization and steadily growing consumption, the reach of Food Tech companies has grown six times over the last couple of years and will continue to increase further," Mathur added.

Zomato and Swiggy currently dominate the online food delivery market in India. Zomato last week announced it has acquired Uber's Food Delivery Business in India in an all-stock deal of nearly $350 million and Uber will have 9.99 per cent stake in the Deepinder Goyal-led food delivery platform. The Google-BCG report also suggested that consumers have common impediments that hinder adoption. A fifth of the respondents stated a lack of trust in the app as the main barrier to usage. Delivery charges (18 per cent), food quality concerns (13 per cent) and lack of customization (10 per cent) are other reasons why customers have, so far, not experimented with online food ordering.

Bharat Benz rides on BS-VI line-up for higher market share.

Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) which sells trucks and buses under the Bharat Benz brand expects the current year to be a decisive one for the company. At present DICV is having tough competition with Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland with bits BS-VI line of vehicles.

 It is looking forward to expand its service from the current 237 to 300 by this year end and beyond 350 by end of 2021.According to the reports from the CEO of DICV “There was a strong growth in 2018, then the market  took a U-turn in 2019. They restructured the entire company in terms of cost and made it much more feasible. They also shifted their focus on export activities. As a result of that, the company is now in much better position on financial basis. He also added that the latest range of BS-VI models the company will introduce in the current year will give them some dominance over their rivals in India".

DICV doesn’t report monthly sales volumes. The company’s calendar year volumes are estimated to have dropped to 14,500 units in 2019 from 22,000 units in 2018.

Bharat Benz truck have up to six year standard warranty and an extended warranty of up to eight years. The trucks will have service intervals up to 20 percent longer. This will reduce maintenance cost by up to six percent. The main and most important differentiator in technology will be the after beneficiary systems used in vehicles. Sales of medium and heavy trucks fell 43.5 percent year-on-year to 146,780 units in the first nine months of the year according to the records of Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam).


As all the automobile industries are required to follow the BS-VI emission norms from April 1. The new emission norms are expected to make the BS-VI trucks at least 10-15 percent compared to BS-IV models. DCIV invested close to Rs500 crore and developed new facilities and over 1,000 new parts for BS-VI. Bharat Benz claims that unlike its competitors, the company doesn’t believe in discounting or panic selling. The value of truck owners will get by investing in Bharat Benz BS-VI models will be higher than that of a BS-VI variant of other tucks. Unlike most other trucks Bharat Benz models do not compromise on fuel efficiency because of transition to BS-VI. The expects 2020 to be a tough year as the impact of the axle norms , which allows a 16-49 tonne truck to carry 25 per cent more load , has not been adsorbed yet. Various calculations show that if India’s GDP grows at 7 percent, DICV will take three years to adsorb the additional capacity.

Bengaluru airport investing ₹13,000 crore on expansion

The Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (KIAB or BLR Airport) welcomed 33.65 million passengers during the calendar year 2019, registering a 4.1 per cent growth, compared to previous years 32.33 million.

While international passenger traffic witnessed a growth of 14.0 per cent which is an increase from 4.27 million in CY 2018 to 4.87 million in CY 2019, domestic traffic grew by 2.6 per cent, from 28.05 million to 28.78 million.

The total ATMs during 2019 was 235,058 as compared 235,190 in CY 2018.

International movements remained on the growth by 13.0 per cent with a total of 30,556 ATMs as compared to 26,966 ATMs in CY 2018, owing to the launch of new routes and new flights during Winter 2018.

Domestic movements saw a decrease of 1.8 per cent to 204,502 ATMs from 208,224 ATMs in CY 2018.

The domestic cargo remained positive, registering a 4.1 per cent growth.

The total domestic cargo processed during this period was 149,603 Metric Tonnes (MT), as against 143,701 MT in CY 2018.During  same period, international cargo dropped by 4. 1 per cent.

"The aviation market in India is in recovery mode after a volatile period. We estimate that passenger volumes at BLR Airport will be between 55 to 65 million passengers per annum (mppa) in the next five years.

To support this growth, BIAL is investing Rs 13,000 crore for infrastructure expansion, including the South Runway, which is operational, and the first phase of Terminal 2," said Hari Marar, MD & CEO, Bangalore International Airport Limited.

Among the airlines, Indigo continued to lead as their passenger figures, to and from Bengaluru, rose by 13.0 per cent from 13.81 mppa in CY 2018 to 15.61 mppa in CY 2019.

On the domestic front, Delhi (13,186) and Mumbai (11,801) continued to be the most travelled destinations from Bengaluru while Singapore (1,628) and Dubai (1,488) were the top international cities by annual scheduled passenger movement CY19.Currently Bengaluru is connected to 82 destinations, which includes 25 international cities.

BIAL has recently entered into an agreement with Phase 1 Events and Embassy Group to manage and operate a Concert Arena, scheduled to be ready by the end of 2021.

"This multipurpose arena will take entertainment a new level, enabling the coming together of world-class music bands from across the globe, sporting events, expos and exhibitions, round the year," the statement said.

The corner stone takes centre stage

A picture of the Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos went viral during his India visit this month. He delivered a package to a customer from kirana store in Mumbai.

Delivering the package was not a random act by Bezos. It gives a sneak peak into business strategy that amazon is betting on to take on rivals such as Walmart owned flip-kart and reliance e commerce venture JioMart by merging online and offline retail. Only 7% of the 1.2 trillion retail market is online and amazon is eyeing remaining 93 percent of the industry according to sources.

This month Bezos announced that the company planned to invest 1 billion dollar to help bring 10 million trade and MSMEs across India online enabling in 10 billion cumulative exports by 2025.

The people familiar with amazon's business strategy said that the company is looking at replicating the model of e commerce giant Alibaba.

It is about giving technology to small business to run the business, digitize them and create catalogues, One of the biggest challenges amazon is aiming to solve tap tier-3 and tier-4 cities and towns is last mile delivery. So they are going to work with these kirana stores and use them as delivery and pickup points and also use some space as warehouse.

Amazon is also going to invest a large chunk of the capital to build the supply chain for its grocery and food category. A big part of its strategy is its financial technology platform to rapidly enable transactions online for small business and even provide them access to capital. Amazon and Alibaba have generally avoided direct competition by dominating different parts of the world.

The two have taken different approaches to invest in India growing economy.. Regardless capturing market share and becoming profitable will require scale of business and vast amounts of capital. Amazon's present investment initiative is aimed exactly at this scaling up and it has realigned its strategy by trying to help India's SME's or kirana stores.

Auto sector slowdown due to loan related issues, BS-VI transition: Tata Motors

Auto sector slowdown due to loan related issues, BS-VI transition: Tata motors

The automobile industry will gather pace by July-August this year , Tata motors which is one of the top official motors they said that they attributing the current temporary slowdown to issues like consumers facing problems in securing vehicle loan and the companies shifting to BS-VI emission norms as mandated by the government.

They hope the sale of passenger vehicles will record pace by July-August before the festival season, Tata Motors president Mayank Pareek, told reporters after launching the company's new car Altroz in Madhya Pradesh. Also he hoped that the vehicle market would grow due t the continuous expansion of infrastructure in the country and the increasing population of young professionals.

Pareek said that about 74% of customers in the country buy cars by taking loans from bank.But for the last 12 to 18 months, customer in the country are facing difficulties in getting vehicle loans from banks.

Also he said that due to the development of standard change from BS-IV  to BS-VI, there has been a slight slowdown in the entire motor vehicle industry as all the vehicle manufacturers are currently finishing their old stocks of BS-IV class vehicle. Pareek said they have exhausted stock of B- class vehicle in our factories in the first nine months ( April -December ) of the ongoing financial year.

The company hopes that by February 1, the stock of vehicle in this category will be reduced to less than 500 units with Tata dealers. As per the order of SC to reduce the environmental pollution, BS-VI emission standards are going to be implemented from April 1 and new vehicle will be sold in the country. with this registration of BS-IV category will be stopped.

Will the Japanese lose its monopoly in the MUV segment?

2019 witnessed the invasion of a South Korean brand and a Chinese brand into the Indian Automobile Industry and which really shook the industry. The budding SUVs from Tata and even the kings of Indian roads- The Mahindra were terrified by their sales figures. Yeah it is true that these really affected the sales of the existing brands in India.

While the whole industry is said to be in the verge of a downfall, these two brands stood iconic. Their positioning of their product was so accurate that the Indian buyers fell for it. Indians always had a soft corner or an extra love towards SUVs. This was correctly utilized or rather exploited by the invaders. Both the brands have made their signature through their first vehicle- the Kia Seltos and MG Hector.

Now the last month of 2019 and first month of 2020 saw the diversification that the brands are aiming at in the Indian market. The MG is diversifying into a smaller electric compact SUV whereas Kia is in for a bigger game. They have launched the Kia Carnival – the Toyota Innova rival. The MPV segment was pioneered by the Japanese giants across India. Innova has its own unique features to remain the best in the segment. It was not just the durability and trust the brand made, but also the low maintenance cost and the comfort level and satisfaction that the brand offered which made it the best.

Innova, as we know was an MPV which was replaced from a 15 to 20 lakh bandwidth to 20 to 30 lakh as its popularity got increased. Now the top end is as costly as an Endeavour. Kia is also no less in terms of pricing. It is also priced from 27 lakhs to 34 lakhs, which is above the innova but comparatively lesser to Toyota Vellfire and the Mercedes V-class.

The Carnival comes with a diesel power train with a 2.2 litre engine driven by an 8 speed automatic gear box. The engine produces about 197bhp and 440 nm of torque, which itself could be a criterion for its purchase. The best thing that Kia has offered in the carnival is that it comes with 3 seat configurations. One is the 7 seater with 2^nd row captain seats. The next one is an 8 seater with the 2^nd row bench seats. And the 3^rd variant is the star of the show, a first in class 9 seater for an exceptionally big family.

How well it can perform is something that all the enthusiasts are looking forward to. But as the bookings open, the first day bookings went up to 1500 approximately. This again shows a positive signal. As the Chinese brand is losing its tempo as one of its cars catches fire last week, Kia is becoming one of our favorite foreigners.