It was National Protein Day in India on February 27. The government initiative is meant to increase awareness about the importance of protein in India, a country where eight out of every ten of people don't meet their daily protein requirement. According to the ICMR every individual should consume at least 48 grams of protein everyday. But after the pandemic, people are actively looking to include protein rich foods in their diet. And that’s where Amul wants to come in. The behemoth wants to use...
Feb 27, 2024•11 min•Ep. 191
2024 is going to be the hottest month on record. Weather watchers have described the rise in new heat records around the world as “insane”, “total madness” and “climatic history rewritten” India is also witnessing a surge in the demand for electricity in general. and the crisis is at its peak in the summers. As incomes rise and populations grow, especially in the world’s hotter regions, the use of air conditioners is becoming increasingly common. An estimated 10 million ACs were sold in India al...
Feb 26, 2024•10 min•Ep. 190
Advertisements on the food-delivery giant Swiggy are only growing in number and variety— from banners and icons to full-blown video ads. If you're wondering what id going on, it's all a part of Swiggy's preparation for its upcoming IPO. It needs to boost its revenue and ads are a great way to make more money with every order. But while Swiggy is doubling down on its four year old advertising business to boost its topline, its restaurant partners are crying foul. Tune in to find out why. Daybreak...
Feb 23, 2024•11 min•Ep. 189
India’s nutraceutical market is estimated to be worth $4-5 billion and the government expects it to be worth almost five times more in the next two years. As important as it is to monitor the rapidly growing market, regulations have not really kept up. In a post-pandemic world where preventive healthcare has become all the rage, a dangerous situation is being created. Health supplement makers are flouting RDA guidelines and consumers have been paying little attention. Now, the health ministry of...
Feb 21, 2024•11 min•Ep. 188
Bengaluru is best known for two things: great weather and terrible traffic. The Silcon Valley of India is the sixth slowest city in the world! How come no one has come up with some innovative tech-based solutions? Actually, they have. But you’ll be surprised to know that one the key reasons why the city's traffic troubles never end is because the focus has mostly been only on tech driven efforts. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken , India’s first subscriber-only business ...
Feb 19, 2024•12 min•Ep. 187
While most startups were facing a reckoning earlier last year with mass layoffs, Licious, the meat delivery platform, was sitting proud, unaffected. Both the founders, Hanjura and Gupta, were giving interviews talking about how their company had made no job cuts and how they did not want that kind of bad karma. It became the anomaly in a market that was seeing a bloodbath that going on all around. But to be honest, the strategy of not laying off, didnt really help Licious. In fact, it saw some o...
Feb 16, 2024•11 min•Ep. 186
The Reserve Bank of India has barred Paytm from continuing all its banking services via Paytm Payments Bank after February 29. It's been operational since 2017 and its services include current and savings accounts, fixed deposits with partner banks, and balance in wallets, UPI, and FASTag, among other services. The RBI has basically said it cannot take any more deposits or conduct credit transactions. This also means no top-ups on any customers accounts, prepaid instruments, wallets, and cards f...
Feb 14, 2024•10 min•Ep. 185
Season 3 of one of the country’s most popular reality TV shows, Shark Tank India, premiered on January 22, 2024. The show has given rise to a significant demand for startup investing. Investors are able to put in as little as Rs 5000 via online fundraising platforms like Tyke Invest and Infubiz. They offer investments in startups through Community Subscription Offer Plans. But these fundraising campaigns are not subject to securities laws and investors in these instruments do not have any shareh...
Feb 12, 2024•11 min•Ep. 184
The results for the latest quarter for Freshworks are out and the US-based Saas company has beaten Wall Street estimates. It posted a revenue of nearly $600 million for FY 2023. Its losses, meanwhile, have narrowed by over 40%. Just a year ago, the story was slightly different. In the same quarter in 2023, the company saw a decline in its net dollar retention rate. Even though the free cash flow was healthy and the revenue climbed 20%, it looked like the comapny was struggling to retain its cust...
Feb 09, 2024•11 min•Ep. 183
It wont be a stretch to say that the Meftal Spas is life-changing for those who suffer from dysmenorrhea. The medicine which is a combination mefenamic acid and dicyclomine was launched more than 40 years ago by Blue Cross Labs, an Indian pharma company. Meftal Spas enjoys the lion’s share of the market at nearly 90%. But at the end of November last year, the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC), an autonomous body under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, issued a drug safety alert on m...
Feb 07, 2024•9 min•Ep. 182
It took Bajaj Finance over 15 years to become the most valued NBFC in the country. And then came along Jio Financial Services Ltd (JFSL) and took the no. 2 position in a span of just two months. It is currently valued at more than $17 billion. Its all set to take the top space. Currently, the company is on a serious hiring spree and it seems to have taken a particular liking to former ICICI Bank employees for its key executive roles. After all, a lot of its future success will depend on the team...
Feb 05, 2024•12 min•Ep. 181
When the govt of India came up with the budget, taxpayers were given 2 options: move to the new tax regime or continue with the old one. The tax rates in the new regime were clearly lower. But despite this, most chose to stick to the old regime. Even with comparatively higher tax rates the old tax regime has remained popular amongst Indian taxpayers. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken , India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, de...
Feb 02, 2024•9 min•Ep. 180
It was Dominoes that made delivery under 30 minutes a thing. Before Swiggy and Zomato came along, Domino’s was more or less the only place you could order in from. It showed Indians that pizza could be cheap and also enjoyed in our own houses. Jubilant, the company that runs the Dominos franchisee in India has nearly 3/4ths of the pizza market share which is also why it is among the first to be affected down by the slowdown in consumption. Jubilant’s shares have grown up by just under 3% in the ...
Jan 31, 2024•8 min•Ep. 179
Byju’s financials for the Financial year 2022, are finally out. Almost 2 years late. And unsurprisingly, it doesn't paint a very pretty picture. The edtech giant posted a consolidated loss of more than 8000 crore rupees on an operating revenue of around 5000 crores. And that’s not all…its valuation has dipped from about 22 billion dollars in the last funding round to less than a billion now. Its quite the fall. Now the cash strapped company is desperately looking to raise $100 million via a righ...
Jan 29, 2024•9 min•Ep. 178
Happy Republic Day, dear listeners. Today is a public holiday but if you're still tuning in, here is an older episode of Daybreak you might like: All the twists and turns in the journey of startups have been well-documented since VC funding began drying up over the past year or so. In the first half of 2022, Indian startups received more than $17 billion dollars. But a year later in 2023. they just got a little over $5 billion. What’s we’ve barely heard about, though, is what is happening to the...
Jan 26, 2024•10 min•Ep. 177
From giving an extra month for “good-faith” negotiations a little over two years ago, to accusing Zee of breach of contract…the Sony Zee merger deal has seen its fair share ups and downs. It was supposed to be the country’s biggest entertainment merger worth $10 billion—two media behemoths were coming together. Now though, the deal is buried six feet under. On Monday, Sony officially released a statement announcing the termination of the agreement. The next day, Punit Goenka, Zee’s CEO, was seen...
Jan 24, 2024•9 min•Ep. 176
The prime minister will be inaugurating the newly constructed Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh today. It's quite the event. In fact, PVR INOX, has even collaborated with a news channel to broadcast the ceremony live in more than 150+ cinemas in more than 70 cities across India. The who’s who of business, from Adani, Ambani, Tata, to Bollywood celebrities and sports stars like Tendulkar and Kohli are expected to attend the inauguration. I dont think we have ever seen anything like this before...
Jan 22, 2024•10 min•Ep. 175
It was 20 years ago when doctors first used the help of a robot in India to carry out a complicated heart surgery at Fortis Escorts, New Delhi. Ever since, more than 100,000 robot assisted surgeries have been performed in the country. Patients are embracing these type of surgeries now than never before and why wouldnt they? Who wouldn't want a less painful procedure, a shorter hospital stay, and most importantly lesser cuts? But they cost more than 3 or 4 times than normal surgeries. And it was ...
Jan 19, 2024•10 min•Ep. 174
Have you noticed how easy it has become to get loans? Whether you want to buy a whole house or you want to buy a pair of shoes, you can take an EMI for whatever you want. And of course, in India, an aspirational country, this means we finally have a way to attain the standard of living we have dreamed of. In the year that ended in March 2023 household debt saw its second-highest surge since independence. It now makes up almost 6% of the country’s GDP. But as indebtedness is rising, so are cases ...
Jan 17, 2024•13 min•Ep. 173
More than 100 Indian startups wrote to TRAI a couple of months ago urging it to maintain its unwavering support for net neutrality principles. This a tug of war began between tech companies including OTT platforms on one side and telecom companies on the other, began years ago. Telecom and internet service providers believe that content and tech companies should pay them for disproportionate traffic. But tech and content companies argue that this would violate the principles of net neutrality. T...
Jan 15, 2024•12 min•Ep. 172
Earlier this week, India’s biggest winemaker, Sula, saw its share price reach historic high. The winemaker controls more than half of the market share of India's domestic wine industry. When it went for an IPO at the end of 2022, it was successfully subscribed by almost two and a half times. So you might think the jump in the share price makes sense. Afterall, Sula dominates the wine market in India. But you see, India is not a wine drinking country in general. The share of wine in the country's...
Jan 12, 2024•12 min•Ep. 171
Paytm*, the fintech giant that was last valued at $16 billion would've never been able to get where it is now without its field agents. Field agents are to fintech payments companies, what delivery partners are to Zomato, Swiggy: their backbone. Out of the 70,000 odd fintech field agents in India, Paytm has about 35000 of these all around the country. The fintech giant boasts of nearly 40 million registered offline merchants now thanks to the work of its agents. But things are changing now. It's...
Jan 10, 2024•11 min•Ep. 170
2023 turned out to be a landmark year for UPI (Unified Payments Interface) with the number of transactions crossing the 100-billion mark for the first time, according to the latest data released by the NPCI. The month of December alone saw more than 12 billion transactions. These numbers are testament to how UPI has revolutionized the way we use money. As of now, there are more than 300 million users in India are using UPI to freely carry out their financial transactions with each other. But did...
Jan 08, 2024•13 min•Ep. 169
Ever since it started, Rapido, the bike taxi company has consciously stayed away from venturing into the cab business. It was happy to stay in the bike taxi lane and beat Ola and Uber there even though that it managed to do it at the expense of customer safety. Now, though, eight years later, Rapido has finally launched its own cab hailing service. Over the last six months or so, it ran a pilot project in Hyderabad and ended up with almost a 25% share of the city’s cab hailing market so last mon...
Jan 05, 2024•10 min•Ep. 168
In 2023, more than 70 million new users downloaded the online shopping app Myntra. India’s leading fashion e-retailer owned by Flipkart has been on quite the discount giving spree lately. And we are not just talking about the year end and festive discounts. Since July, Myntra has 22 sales days every month. Its biggest rival, Reliance owned Ajio has no more than 14. So you might think, Myntra must be raking in some crazy numbers in sales right? Not quite. From onboarding hundreds of sellers a mon...
Jan 03, 2024•11 min•Ep. 167
For the last week of December, we are taking you back to some of the most popular Daybreak episodes of 2023. We'll be back with regular programming from January 3, 2024. For a people who were quite averse to the whole concept of credit, Indians really seem to be developing a new found love for the piece of plastic and banks have been happy to ride the wave. But lately they’ve been left quite baffled because they are being being beaten at their own game. A growing community of people are constant...
Dec 29, 2023•11 min•Ep. 166
For the last week of December, we are taking you back to some of the most popular Daybreak episodes of 2023. We'll be back with regular programming from January 3, 2024. For the longest time public sector banks, as we know them, have been very reluctant about study abroad loans. And it was for good reason. They’ve suffered greatly because of education loans going bad. Meanwhile, its a whole different story that was going on with non-banks. Study abroad loans accounted for about US$4 billion in t...
Dec 27, 2023•11 min•Ep. 165
More than a year after the communication minister Ashwini Vaishnav had introduced a the draft version to the public, on Thursday, the Rajya Sabha passed the new Telecom Bill. Many hopes were pinned on it considering it was meant to replace the three archaic laws that had been governing India’s telecom sector. The journey until here, however, was far from smooth. The draft version of the bill had left the industry divided and it actually received a record 900 comments. After many revisions, the b...
Dec 22, 2023•11 min•Ep. 164
Two years ago, Sony’s India unit, Sony Pictures Networks, announced a merger with rival Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. It was supposed to be the country’s biggest entertainment deal. The combined entity would own more than 70 TV channels, two video streaming services and two film studios. Ever since, Sony Liv’s subscriber base grew from 18 million to over 33 million. With good original stories and unique non-fiction shows, alongside a strong partnerships strategy, Sony has been able to close...
Dec 20, 2023•14 min•Ep. 163
A few days ago Karthik Ayyar, the founder of an IIT Madras-incubated company that developed India’s first indigenous mobile operating system, BharOS, said his company is considering providing this technology for routers. BharOS is being launched as an alternative at a time when the tech giants like Google are under the scanner for anti-trust practices in India. However, this is not the first time India is trying to develop an indigenous operating system, both for mobile and computer devices. The...
Dec 18, 2023•14 min•Ep. 162
