1947 Tech — Week 17
A few good articles that I came across this week..
1. India Gets Its First $100 Billion Company in a Decade
India’s waited 10 years to host another $100 billion corporation. Fittingly, the first company to attain that mantle in a decade is Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., the outsourcing giant that helped put the country’s best-known industry on the map. In 2007, Reliance Industries had become the first Indian company to breach $100 billion mark in market capital.
TCS helped put India on the map for global technology. The milestone underscores the importance of tech to India.
2. Airbnb sees more room for growth in home-sharing
Experts predict that in the next decade, it is poised to beat the biggest hospitality majors and some, such as Accor Hotels, have even tried to pick up a stake in the 10-year-old company, which has on its platform 4.5 million properties across 81,000 cities and over 300 million guests.
In India, despite facing regulatory hurdles, Airbnb is well on its way to make a mark with even branded room aggregators such as Oyo Rooms and Treebo Hotels now coming onto its platform.
India also has a 230 million urban millennial population on the lookout for more exciting ways to travel that creates a huge demand in the market.
The success of Airbnb in India so far is reflected in the incredible growth we have witnessed among the host and guest community alike.
With over 30,000 listings in the country, Airbnb listings in India have grown by 115 per cent over the past year. Also, there has been almost 2x growth in the number of nights booked on Airbnb in India since 2016.
In India, in particular, an average Airbnb woman host earns $1,200–1,400 a year, which is double the income earned by an average Airbnb host in India.
3. Xiaomi starts 2018 on top, grabbing a record 31% share in India in Q1 | Canalys
Xiaomi has shown no signs of slowing down in India. The Chinese smartphone vendor registered an impressive 155% annual shipment growth, taking the lead in a smartphone market that is growing yet rapidly consolidating. Xiaomi shipped over 9 million units, giving it a market share of just over 31%, the highest ever for a vendor since Q1 2014, when Samsung had a share of 33%
Overall, the smartphone market in India grew at 8% to 29.5 million units for the quarter.
4. The story behind the acquisition of TaxiForSure by Ola
Timing is everything. The story behind the acquisition of TaxiForSure by Ola. Why it didn’t sell itself to Uber. TaxiForSure was in the midst of raising a big round from large VC funds and Hedge funds in Silicon Valley and the Uber rape incident happened in India the night before the meetings with VCs in SF and it turned out to be one of the main reasons why it couldn’t raise capital.
5. Few Charts
(1) Softbank is taking control of Indian Startups with its big bucks:
(2) The state of Indian startup ecosystem in one chart:
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Have a great week!
