Amazon's $3-billion Bet
Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon will invest another $3 billion (about Rs 20,000 crore) in its Indian operations to take its overall investment in the country to over $5 billion (around Rs 33,500 crore). "We have already created some 45,000 jobs in India and continue to see huge potential in the Indian economy... I am pleased to announce that Amazon will invest an additional $3 billion on top of the $2 billion investment we announced in 2014 to bring our total committed investment in India to over $5 billion," Bezos said in an event in Washington attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Seattle-based online retail giant has also completed three years in India, and has now set its sights on the country to drive its international growth after losing out in China.
The Chosen One
Umang Bedi, New MD India, Facebook
Social networking giant Facebook has appointed Umang Bedi as Managing Director India to head its operations in the country. Bedi, earlier Managing Director of Adobe, South Asia region, would succeed Kirthiga Reddy, who has been transferred to Facebook headquarters in the US. Bedi, an engineering graduate from the University of Pune and an alumnus of Harvard Business School, would assume charge from July and will lead Facebook's initiatives to build and maintain relationship with top clients in the country. India is the largest market for Facebook outside the US with close to 150 million monthly active users.
Lean and Mean
Dilip Shanghvi, Founder & MD, Sun Pharma
As part of its consolidation drive in the US, India's largest drug maker, Sun Pharmaceutical, sold its two oral solid dosage manufacturing plants located in Philadelphia and Aurora in the US to Frontida BioPharm for an undisclosed amount. This is Sun Pharma's second divestment in the US in the past six months. The US business accounts for around half of the company's total revenues of $4.3 billion (around Rs 28,500 crore) in 2015/16.
Enter the Dragon
Vikas Jain, Co-founder, Micromax
At a time when Chinese companies have made big inroads into the Indian mobile market, India's second-biggest smartphone maker Micromax is setting its eyes on China to scale up. "The company aims to become the world's fifth-largest smartphone maker by 2020, and can't do that without access to Chinese consumers," Micromax co-founder Vikas Jain said at a technology conference in Hong Kong. Currently, Micromax has overseas presence in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Russia. It is already the third-largest mobile vendor in Russia.
Inordinate Delays
Gautam Adani, Chairman, Adani Group (Photo: Shailesh Raval)
Frustrated with six years of delays, Adani may abandon its plans to build one of the world's largest coal mines in Australia due to a series of legal challenges from environmental groups. Adani group's Chairman Gautam Adani told an Australian newspaper that he could not wait indefinitely to begin the project as the "pit to plug" project was yet to receive the green light after six years of environmental assessments and court battles.
"You can't continue just holding. I have been really disappointed that things have got too delayed," Adani said.