Also in this letter:
■ Zerodha profit surges 87% in FY22; TCS profit misses expectations in Q3
■ Industry bodies seek staggered implementation of data protection law
■ Meta names Vikas Purohit as head of global business in India
BIS seeks members’ views on rules for live commerce platforms
The government has initiated talks with stakeholders on a regulatory framework for live commerce in the country.
What is live commerce? It’s a form of online selling in which influencers partner with brands and to showcase their products. Currently, there are no specific guidelines for live commerce in India, only broader rules for ecommerce marketplaces.
Driving the news: The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), which is under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, has begun to assess the need for guidelines for the new form of ecommerce, ET has learnt.
This follows moves by the International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) to issue international standards for live commerce.
The Indian standards body has sought comments from members of its retail, ecommerce and epayment services sectional committee, an email reviewed by ET showed.
Gaining traction: The government move comes at a time when live commerce is seeing increased participation from top e-tailers like Flipkart, Amazon India and Myntra. Live commerce is fairly big in China and relies on influencer shopping experts who hold live sessions on ecommerce platforms.
China’s live commerce boom: The bet on live commerce and its long-term potential in India is based on how it has played out in China. In 2021, McKinsey & Co said the value of China’s live-commerce market grew at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 280% between 2017 and 2020 to reach an estimated $171 billion in 2020.
Zerodha profit surges 87% in FY22; TCS Q3 profit misses expectations
Zerodha founders Nikhil Kamath (left) and Nithin Kamath
Stock brokerage Zerodha’s net profit increased 87% in fiscal year 2022 (FY22) to Rs 2,094.3 crore from Rs 1,122.3 crore in FY21, according to its audited financial statement filed with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
Operating revenue jumped to Rs 4,963.7 crore from Rs 2,728.9 crore in the same period.
Overall income stood at Rs 4,964 crore for FY22. Expenses grew by almost 72% to Rs 2,164 crore in FY22, from Rs 1,260.1 crore in FY21.
Investing boom: We reported on April 19, 2022 that Zerodha was expected to show significant increase in revenue and profit as many new users joined the brokerage platform owing to several initial public offerings (IPOs).
In an interview with ET then, Zerodha founder and chief executive Nithin Kamath said the company posted an almost 60% year-on-year jump in both its unaudited profits and revenue for 2021-22 at around Rs 1,800 crore and Rs 4,300 crore, respectively.
TCS Q3 results: Meanwhile, Tata Consultancy Services pleasantly surprised Dalal Street on Monday, reporting a 5.3% sequential rise in consolidated revenue to Rs 58,229 crore for the December quarter, well above the Rs 56,893 crore analysts predicted in an ET NOW poll.
Net profit rose nearly 4% quarter-on-quarter to Rs 10,846 crore but was lower than the expected Rs 11,200 crore. In constant currency terms, revenue grew 13.5% year-on-year during the quarter, TCS said.
Also Read | TCS headcount falls by over 2,000 QoQ despite improvement in attrition
ET Ecommerce Index
We’ve launched three indices – ET Ecommerce, ET Ecommerce Profitable, and ET Ecommerce Non-Profitable – to track the performance of recently listed tech firms. Here’s how they’ve fared so far.
Industry bodies seek staggered implementation of data protection law
The government must follow a phased implementation once the recently drafted Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022, becomes law, industry bodies have said.
Its provisions should kick in gradually so that entities have adequate time to transition to the new regime, they said.
Two-year timeframe: IT industry body Nasscom has suggested that since the earlier versions of the draft had a timeframe of 24 months for implementation, the new iteration should consider the same.
Industry body BSA, The Software Alliance said the bill should provide a clear transitional period of at least two years for implementation.
Calls to simplify draft: While the government intends to leave paper records out of the bill’s scope, the use of undefined terms like ‘offline’, ‘online’, ‘digitised’, or complex terms like ‘automated’ can make it difficult to interpret, industry bodies said. They suggested simplifying the draft by stating that the bill does not apply to the processing of personal data not in electronic form.
TWEET OF THE DAY
Meta names Vikas Purohit as head of global business in India
Meta has appointed Vikas Purohit as director of its global business group in India.
Details: Purohit will spearhead the company’s relationship with the country’s leading brands and advertising agencies to drive Meta’s revenue growth across key channels in India and accelerate the adoption of digital tools by the largest advertisers and agencies, the company said in a statement.
Past experience: Purohit has more than 20 years of experience in senior business, sales and marketing roles at companies such as Tata Cliq, Amazon, Reliance Brands Limited, Aditya Birla Group and Tommy Hilfiger.
Adda247 elevates CPO to cofounder: Meanwhile, government job preparation platform Adda247 on Monday announced the elevation of its chief product officer Chandan Singh to cofounder. The company said the change has been made because of Singh’s “contribution and commitment to the company’s vision”.
ETtech Done Deals
■ Park+ has raised $17 million (about Rs 140 crore) in its Series C round, led by existing investors Epiq Capital, Sequoia Capital and Matrix Partners India. The round values the Gurugram-based company at $340 million, up from around $150 million during its Series B funding in November 2021.
■ Health food brand The Whole Truth has raised $15 million in its Series B round, led by Sequoia Capital India. Other investors in the round include existing backers Matrix Partners India and early-stage venture firm Sauce.vc. The Mumbai-based company has been valued at around Rs 600 crore, or about $73 million, following the funding, founder and CEO Shashank Mehta told ET.
■ Learning management system startup Toddle has raised $17 million in its Series A funding round, led by Sequoia Capital India. Tenacity Ventures and Trifecta Capital, along with existing investors Matrix Partners, Beenext, and Better Capital, also participated in the funding round, the company said in a statement.
■ Agritech firm Cropin has secured Rs 113 crore in funding from new investors Google and JSR Corporation, as well as existing investors ABC Impact and Chiratae Ventures. The funds will aid in expanding Cropin Cloud, the company’s recently launched intelligent agriculture cloud platform, to cater to the growing demand for digitisation and predictive intelligence in the global agriculture sector.
■ Gurugram-based healthcare edtech startup Virohan said on Monday it has raised $7 million in a bridge round of funding, dubbed pre-Series B1, led by Blume Ventures. The fresh funding will help Virohan expand to the Japanese market with support from its existing investors ALES, and Rebright Partners.
India’s iPhone exports double to $2.5 billion
Apple exported iPhones worth more than $2.5 billion from India from April to December, nearly twice the previous fiscal year’s total, underscoring how the US tech giant is accelerating its shift from China as geopolitical tensions rise.
Breakdown: Foxconn and Wistron have each shipped more than $1 billion of Apple’s marquee devices abroad in the first nine months of the fiscal year ending March 2023, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
Pegatron, another major contract manufacturer for Apple, is on track to export about $500 million of the gadgets by the end of January, they added.
Did you know? Yesterday marked 16 years to the day since Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPhone in 2007.
Other Top Stories By Our Reporters
Ashneer Grover, wife get more time to file reply in BharatPe case: The Delhi High Court on Monday granted BharatPe cofounder and former managing director Ashneer Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain Grover and their family members more time to file their response to a lawsuit filed by the fintech firm, which has sought Rs 88 crore in damages for alleged misappropriation of funds and reputational harm. The court also asked Grover – through his legal counsel – to maintain decorum and not speak against the company’s executives.
Chinese phone brands in talks with Indian makers with PLI nod: Top Chinese smartphone brands are in talks with Indian contract manufacturers that have been approved for the government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. A senior industry official said brands such as Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Transsion are in talks with the likes of Bhagwati (Micromax), Lava International, UTL Neolync, Optiemus Electronics, and Dixon Technologies.
Global Picks We Are Reading
■ Adobe’s CEO sizes up the state of tech now (WSJ)
■ Come to the ‘war cry party’: How social media helped drive mayhem in Brazil (The Washington Post)
■ Digital nomads now come first for Mexico City’s gig workers (Rest of World)
(Graphics and illustrations by Rahul Awasthi)
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