Uber Hires A New Country Head For India: Your Top Headlines for Monday

Amit Jain, former consultant for TPG and McKinsey, is the new president for Uber India. He moves from Silicon Valley, where he was heading rent.com, a property website. India is Uber’s biggest market outside the U.S. and its nineteen months of operations in this country have been challenging, to say the least. At the same time, most of its firsts have also been in India, whether it is the addition of the three-wheeler auto-rikshaws to its kitty, or allowing its drivers to accept cash payments. With competitors, the Softbank-funded Ola and Meru, blazing ahead, Amit Jain has his job cut out for him.

 Zomato is ready for its next round of funds, but its biggest investor may not be a part of it. InfoEdge India, which runs a host of classified sites for jobs, real estate and marriages, is also a majority investor in the restaurant review app. InfoEdge owns about half of Zomato, which was valued at $660 million in the last round, while Info Edge has a market cap of $1.5 billion. The word on the street is that in the next round, Info Edge may surrender some of its stake rather than put in more money.

 The retail vs e-tail battle is heating up in mobile phones. Brick and mortar stores, which focus only on mobile gadgets, are offering 4-hour delivery options and other perks to attract customers for whom e-commerce websites have become the first port of call while shopping for new phones. They need not worry. With India touted as the world’s fastest growing smartphone market, the pie is big enough for everyone.

 Meanwhile, e-tailer Snapdeal’s customers can now also pay by cards on delivery, not just cash. This is the outcome of its latest acquisition, GoJavas, a last mile logistics firm.

 We knew the last year wasn’t the easiest for India Inc. so these numbers should come as no surprise. Average sales and profit growth at the top 1700 companies was at a 2-year low. This is contradictory to the economic numbers that came over the weekend, pegging the country’s growth rate at 7.3 percent for the year, more than 5-7 percent growth in the previous two years. But let’s not read too much into this, given the confusion over the new method for calculating economic growth.

 But the Modi government has heard you. In a bid to push up economic growth, the government has upped its spending as well. Over 9 percent of the budget spending has been completed within the first month, government numbers show. They are betting that high tax and revenue earnings as a result of more economic activity will help it make up for the faster spend. With a expected bad monsoon and a weak global economy, whether that will happen is anyone’s guess.

 RBI governor Raghuram Rajan is expected to do his bit with yet another rate cut this week, the third this year, but most probably the last one in a while.

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