Manufacturing Financial News

BENGALURU : Reliance-backed electric vehicle maker Altigreen, unable to raise funds over the past year amid a surgical restructuring, is now chasing a metric that’s become the investors’ darling: profitability. That, however, might be a long and bumpy road. As part of a restructuring in December after the company failed to raise funds last year, Altigreen laid off about 200 employees and cut salaries by 30-40% to pare expenses, two people familiar with its operations told Mint, requesting anonymity.

New Delhi: Consumer electronics and appliances maker Veira on Monday said it will invest Rs 450 crore to set up a new manufacturing unit at Greater Noida to enhance capacity for air coolers and washing machines. This investment will result in increasing existing production capacity from 1 lakh to 5 lakh units of washing machines and air coolers annually, Veira said in a statement.

«Now, the mindset has changed rampantly. Today, as the leading wood panel manufacturer in the country, we believe that the opportunity in front of us is tremendous and we are barely at the tip of the iceberg,» says Keshav Bhajanka, ED, Century Plyboards. When you started your journey in the business, how has the trend changed since then? How are you seeing in terms of the difference that has come in in the industry since then as well? I think that there has been a sea change in the industry from the point when I joined to now. I think that the scales have changed massively. And earlier when you talk about the wood panel industry, there was always this thought about limitation about how the industry is small, how the industry is unlikely to become to the scale of what it could be in other countries and so on so forth.

Measuring India’s manufacturing sector remains a data challenge,’ Mint, 15 May 2023). Speaking to The Economist recently, India’s former chief statistician Pronab Sen argued that the old GDP series (2004-05 base year) may have captured real growth rates more accurately. Sen had earlier suggested that India’s recent GDP figures were likely to be overestimated because of how informal-sector growth was accounted for.

FPIs) pumped $991 million in April, a Mint analysis showed, betting on the revival of Vodafone Idea Ltd, expected tariff hikes and rising phone usage. FPIs jostled for shares in Vodafone Idea's ₹18,000 crore follow-on public offering (FPO), India's largest, also sparking interest in tower company Indus Towers, which stands to gain from the telco's planned rollout of 4G and 5G networks. Bharti Airtel picked up as well, as investors eye long-awaited tariff hikes later this year.

Apple has started FY25 with a bang in India — exports of iPhones made in the country nearly doubled in April to $1.1 billion (Rs 9,000 crore) from $580 million a year ago, according to official data reviewed by ET. April is typically a low-export month as there aren’t too many festive sales in any part of the world during the month, experts said. Based on this, they expect the US giant to achieve the Rs 1 lakh crore export mark in FY25 as India emerges as the firm’s second manufacturing base for iPhones outside China. iPhones are only made in India and China and experts estimate that 14-15% production has shifted to India and is likely to reach 26% by 2026. Apple exports a bulk of its total India production. In FY24, Apple’s total production in India touched $14 billion (Rs 1.2 lakh crore). The company’s exports crossed $10 billion (Rs 85,000 crore). Both these figures were the highest achieved by any company in India till date for a single financial year.

factor market reforms like land and labour to propel India's growth to a double-digit trajectory, ADB Chief Economist Albert Park has said. «There are still concerns that the basic factor markets like land and labour in the formal sector of unemployment in India are still small. So, you really want to formalise those,» he told PTI in an interview. The factor market reforms include land, labour, energy, and access to credit, among others, which are critical factors for production. Labour reforms have been approved by Parliament in 2020, but it has not been implemented. In 2019 and 2020, 29 central labour laws were amalgamated, rationalised and simplified into four labour codes — the Code on Wages, 2019; the Industrial Relations Code, 2020; the Code on Social Security, 2020; and the Occupational Safety, Health & Working Conditions Code, 2020.

cooling products like air conditioners, refrigerators and fans, besides ice cream and beverages. There is a 20% year-on-year increase in rural job vacancies, according to executives at recruitment services and consumer companies. They estimate 20,000-50,000 new temporary jobs are being created this year thanks to robust summer season demand in rural and semi-urban areas while companies with a large focus on rural businesses are looking to bolster sales and distribution presence in the hinterlands. Riding on strong rural consumption, many companies are increasing hiring on behalf of clients for sales, services, manufacturing and retail roles, said executives at recruitment firms ManpowerGroup, TeamLease Services and Adecco. «Companies that make summer products expect to hire even more temporary workers because it's getting hotter in May and June,» said Alok Kumar, president, Manpower, a subsidiary of ManpowerGroup.

Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran will also assume the role of chairman, Tata Electronics, at a time when the Tata group company has earmarked about $14 billion in investments to spearhead its entry into the semiconductor business. Chandrasekaran will take over from Banmali Agrawala who has held the post for the last few years. Chandrasekaran who is already chairman of many key Tata group companies will take charge after requisite regulatory approvals. Agrawala, a key Tata Sons aide, has taken on an advisory role recently in the group. Chandrasekaran's role as chairman is seen as significant as it signals the importance of the semiconductor business to the conglomerate, say insiders.

PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana, established this February, looks to provide subsidies for rooftop solar installation to 10 million households. Sinha reckons the scheme could generate demand for 25-30 GW of solar modules over its duration. Tata Power wants to cater to 5-6 GW of this demand, he said.

ISRO Chairman S Somanath has said the Indian space industry is offering a tremendous opportunity to the private sector in the country as a new area of growth and development. He said the union government envisages the space sector in the country to become a 9 to10 billion dollar industry in the next 5-10 years from the current levels of 2 billion dollars. Somanath was speaking after unveiling the carbon reduction initiative of SFO Technologies, the flagship company of the NeST Group, in a function on Saturday, a company release said. He also said that 400 private sector companies have benefited from the technology developed by ISRO for its various missions. Companies like SFO Technologies are well positioned to take further advantage of the new policy initiatives in the space sector by the government of India.

ICMR) has said stressing that consumers should read the information carefully to make informed and healthy choices. In its recently issued dietary guidelines, ICMR said «Some manufacturers use labels to make incorrect and incomplete claims about their food products.» The report said health claims on packaged food are designed to catch the consumer attention and convince them that the product is healthy. It also pointed out that sugar-free foods maybe loaded with fats, while packed fruit juices may contain only 10 per cent fruit pulp.

Earlier this week (May 9, 2024), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) accomplished the significant achievement of conducting a successful hot test of a liquid rocket engine that was produced using additive manufacturing (AM) technology. The test lasted 665 seconds and involved the utilization of the PS4 engine, which is part of the PSLV upper stage. AM, also known as 3D printing, involves layer-by-layer material addition to create objects from digital models, allowing for complex designs and efficient material usage.

Real estate markets in non-metros or Tier-2 cities continue to grow by leaps and bounds, in the process outperforming many metros in terms of investment and demand growth. This massive rise in real estate investment in non-metros can be attributed to various factors.

In a news that has brought cheers to the Indian realty market, Knight Frank and CII have reported that the sector will grow three-fold in the coming decade and is expected to reach USD 1.5 trillion by 2034, contributing 10.5% of the country’s total economic output, translating a phenomenal increase of 3.2%. At present, the sector’s contribution to the GDP is 7.3%.

consumer goods manufacturers said demand for necessities has bucked the uncertain trend that's typical in an election season, growing at a record pace. However, retailers said the seven-phase, April 19-June 1 polls with voting days around weekends has led to some disruptions despite the solid recovery in March and April. The heatwave, early summer vacations and political rallies have boosted sales of cooling appliances as well as out-of-home consumption of small packs of biscuits, juices and snacks, apart from packaged water, an absolute necessity. AC maker Blue Star managing director B Thiagarajan said on its earnings call last week that it can be difficult to anticipate demand during an election season. From the fourth week of March, there was a surge in demand and AC sales shot up 70-90% in April from the year earlier. Leading biscuit maker Parle Products senior category head B Krishna Rao told ET there has been a 15-18% jump in sales of Rs 5 and Rs 10 packs of biscuits and snacks since April due to higher out-of-home consumption led by political rallies.

The governor of New Mexico has announced plans to court new investments in hydrogen fuel development at a business summit in the Netherlands over the coming week

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Maldives-based Sun Online reported. HAL had manufactured the helicopters donated by the Indian government to Maldives. ALSO READ: Maldives anti-India stance: It shouldn't have been done, says FM Moosa Zameer Indian soldiers were deployed in Hanimaadhoo, Kadhdhoo and Gan.

₹10,00,000. Sitharaman’s emphasis on employment opportunities to the students also comes in the context of opposition parties like Congress and AAP, among others, raising ‘unemployment’ as an issue in the ongoing national polls.

Eicher Motors reported an 18 percent increase in consolidated profit after tax to ₹1,070 crore for the fourth quarter ending March 2024. Meanwhile, on the political front, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal reignited the "next PM" debate, a day after being released on interim bail. Union Home Minister Amit Shah responded to the AAP leader's claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi may "retire" next year.

tariffs is a four-fold jump from the existing 25% and comes after senior officials from US the administration expressed frustration over China’s manufacturing “overcapacity" of electric vehicles, which poses a threat to US jobs and national security. Previously, US President Joe Biden and his Republican challenger, Donald Trump, have spoken about going tough on China. This move can provide a strong footing for the Democrats to flaunt their anti-China credentials ahead of the US presidential elections in November of this year.