Mobile based transactions appear to be taking place in large numbers, but the population executing these transactions still appears low, indicated a recent report by National Payments Council of India (NPCI).

The Interbank Mobile Payment Service (IMPS) saw a growth of 19.01% in the total number of transactions taking place between September and October 2013. However, there was only a 1.14% increase in total number of Mobile Money IDs (MMID) issued. This clearly indicates that those who are using the Mobile Payment Service are doing so with increasing frequency, but the service is not witnessing healthy adoption.

As far as transactions are concerned, the volumes increased substantially month on month to 1.3 Million from 1.1 Million. Additionally, the amounts being exchanged also witnessed ascension. Amount transacted increased by 31.26% to Rs. 784.72 Crores. Interestingly, the average amount traded too increased healthily by 10.29% to Rs. 5,986.63.

NPCI's endeavors are yet to have a profound impact, but they will surely alter the very core structure when processes are streamlined and gain mainstream adoption. For example NPCI had partnered with UIDAI, earlier this month, to launch Aadhar based remittance service, which enables money transfer from one Aadhaar number to another number or to bank accounts and vice versa. Such an open framework isn't available in any of the Mobile wallets! Similarly it had introduced a universal USSD Code to access the service.

But one of the most significant decisions was to extend the service for merchant payments as well. This ensured companies like Paytm, Dish TV, IRCTC, Tikona and others started to incorporate IMPS within their core structure of payment.

It appears IMPS isn't growing since banks who have partnered with NPCI haven't been pushing the service well. If the Aadhar card endeavor can jack-up Bank Account creation, why can't Banks do the same for IMPS?

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DTDC, a prominent Indian Logistics and Courier Company, has launched an online marketplace with special emphasis on international delivery.

Looking to capture the growing market of Indians procuring goods online and sending to far-off locations, DTDC has launched an e-Commerce site. The site offers a simple way for buyers, from the site, to dispatch the merchandise to their friends and relatives abroad. The shopping portal currently offers multiple verticals including clothes, sweets, bags and accessories. The sellers on the marketplace include WhiteKalia, MyChocolateMaker, Blessingz, Nord51 and Ghasitaram among others. For the inauguration of the venture, DTDC had offered to send specially packed 'Diwali Packs' abroad, for an introductory price of Rs. 399/Kg.

Why launch such a niche venture?
DTDC has a healthy 15% share in the Indian market, which is presently led by Bluedart and DHL. In order to further enhance its position, DTDC had even bought 70% share in Bangalore-based logistics firm Nikkos earlier this year for a relatively modest sum of Rs. 1 Crore.

However, French courier company GeoPost had acquired 42% stake in DTDC from Reliance Capital earlier this year. GeoPost had made its global expansion plans pretty clear and DTDC actually wanted to expand beyond the Indian Borders.

International courier services are still at their nascent stage in India. Owing to the cost prohibitive nature, people usually refrain from couriering gift-articles abroad. It is a lot easier to send across gift-certificates or temporary debit/credit cards.

Additionally, e-Commerce companies are still wary of sending products to international destinations owing to multiple documentary and financial formalities. DTDC on the other hand, has a direct presence in USA, Canada, UK, UAE, Singapore, China and Australia and operates in Kenya, Bahrain, Kuwait, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh through its partners or associates. This offers a great deal of leverage and reach.

International logistics is certainly a niche subject and given DTDC’s wide reach, the company could offer a interesting proposition that might turn out cheaper than procuring the merchandise and then couriering it. What do you think?

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The largest Personal Computer (PC) maker, Lenovo Group has registered a phenomenal growth in the smartphone and tablet segment. The company posted a very healthy 36% Jump in Quarterly Profits. The dynamic revision of the revenue sources from PC to Portable Computing, marks a pivotal point for the company and should serve as a strong reminder as to where the future of Lenovo lies.

Lenovo making strong inroads in the portable internet enabled devices market is surely a strong indicator for the PC maker. The results reflect the dramatic shift underway as people switch to going online wirelessly. Additionally, such a growth pattern shows how the PC makers are scrambling against a relatively new, but strongly emerging, market.

Lenovo has been launching multiple variants of its smartphones as well as tablets. It has been involved in heavy promotional activities too. Though the company registered a drop of 3% in sales of Desktop PCs, the company is optimistic that the PC market will come up. "The PC market is recovering and tablet growth continues shifting to mainstream and entry-level segments, as well as emerging markets. These are Lenovo’s strength areas" said Yang Yuanqing, Chairman Lenovo Group.

Interestingly, tablets and smartphones are not the only strong avenues for Lenovo's growth. The company registered a 8% (US$ 5 Billion) growth in laptop sales. However, surpassing by a huge margin, the sales of smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile devices rose 106% over a Year-On-Year basis, to US$ 1.5 Billion. Mobile’s share of revenue expanded to 15% from the previous quarter’s 9%.

The remarkable growth, of a traditional PC maker, in the Tablet & Smartphone market suggests the ability of the company to make devices that are desired by the users and price them correctly. Additionally, the company has brought forth a large number of devices spread over a wide price spectrum and even brought forth industry firsts such as the Lenovo P780 with a humongous 4000mAh battery. With such healthy growth patterns will Lenovo slowly withdraw from the PC market?

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After realizing that it cannot control malicious Chrome extensions on the Windows platform, Google has announced that from January onwards, Chrome for Windows users will only be able to download and use extensions which are available on the Chrome Web Store.

This new development will be applicable for both stable and beta browser releases. Local extensions will be however available on Canary and Dev builds of the browser. This is because these are development versions and are not used by the general public.

Google has said that many have abused the capability to inject malware into unsuspecting users' browser. These malicious extensions can override browser settings and can alter the user experience and security. A lot of Windows users have complained about this, and Google had decided that the only way was to shut down local browser extensions. The company claims that the extensions that it offers via its web store are completely safe and controlled. They go through an approval policy before being published.

The company is asking all developers to migrate extensions which they might have stored outside the Web Store as soon as it is possible. Once local extensions are removed, users will not be able to use their previous extensions in addition to not being able to install them.

This seems to be a big step against malicious attempts and security issues in Chrome, given the fact that many use the extension feature in Chrome to supercharge their browser.

Via | The Chromium Blog

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Microsoft seems to have cleverly arranged to earn from every Android based device sold in the market. With all the financial arrangements in place, the company makes as much as US$ 2 Billion a year, piggybacking on Android's growth.

How can Microsoft earn from Android?
The essence of the scope of earning lies in the software and hardware methods, techniques and processes adopted while designing Android based devices and their respective Patent Holders. For quite some while now, Patent Wars have been waging across makers of smartphones. Google's Android, Apple's iOS, Microsoft's Windows Phone and in few cases BlackBerry too, have been embroiled in a multi-stage bitter accusations and counter-accusations regarding usage of patented methods and technologies.

When patents turn from Shields to Swords, companies have to pay the penalty. For quite a while now, Samsung and Apple have been locking horns over patents and there have been severe casualties. However, in case of Microsoft and Android, the former seems to have taken the financially amicable route. Microsoft has inked deals with almost all manufacturers of Android smartphones. However, it has carefully avoided Google, the maker of Android OS and Motorola, the company Google bought.

There are two reasons why Microsoft earns such a handsome figure. Patent royalties entail a margin of 95%. This means, if a patent, belonging to Microsoft is being used by hardware makers, 95% of the royalty has to be paid to Microsoft. So this is pure profit. The other reason is the phenomenal adoption of Android based devices. According to the latest IDC estimates, Android OS was running on 79.3%, of all smartphones sold worldwide in the third quarter of 2013. In just this time-frame, more than 187 Million devices were shipped. Industry insiders speculate that Microsoft makes 6 to 8 Dollars per device sold.

Patents have strangely become the weapon to make money, rather than protect the interests of those who have worked and developed the technologies. Eventually, it is the end-buyer who has to shell-out extra, to pay the royalty. Is this justified?

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After many days of speculation and rising interest, Twitter has finally gone public. The IPO (at the time of writing) has gone really well for the company, with the stock opening at $45.10 on 11 million shares, a 73.5% increase on the initial price of $26 which was set by the social network. Based on stock trading at that price, Twitter has achieved a valuation of $31.8 billion, a notable increase compared to the conservative $14.16 billion valuation based on the previous stock price range. The current valuation is based on 705 million fully diluted shares.

While this maybe good news for Twitter, the company still faces quite a few challenges on the road ahead. It is non-profitable, even after 5 years in operation. Its growth over the years has been good, especially in terms of celebrity adoption and social media marketing. While it does not match Facebook in terms of user base, it has managed to amass 230 million monthly active users (more than 100 million daily active users). The company's only chance of making a profit seems to be in advertising. While their efforts to drum up on the advertising have been good in terms of revenue increase, they are not enough for the company to be profitable and that is worrying in the long run. But right now, the IPO paints a good picture for the company.

Twitter has had a lot of growing pains reaching this level. It saw multiple founder exits and also suffered a lot of infrastructural problems, as evidenced by the increased appearance of the fail whale some years back. This was mostly because their infrastructure was not ready for the kind of scale Twitter grew into. Since Dick Costolo took over as CEO, these issues have now been resolved and the service is stable. Even if there was a lot of floundering when it came to the early years, it seems to be that the company had stumbled upon a truly big idea which got them a lot of traction and sustained usage, something that is not going anywhere anytime soon.

Source | WSJ

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