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Category: Brands

  • MMA India holds first ever Ideathon, addressing brand challenges in a mobile first economy

    MMA India holds first ever Ideathon, addressing brand challenges in a mobile first economy

    MUMBAI: The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) in India will introduce its first ever Ideathon, a 30-hour nonstop hackathon to address and solve brand challenges in a highly competitive environment. The event, which will take place on 25 – 26 August 2018 at K-start Respace, is targeted at tech-driven entrepreneurs and students. The first of its kind, the Ideathon will also be introduced at the upcoming MMA Forum in September.

    Bringing together the brightest and youngest minds from across Bangalore, the event, run in partnership with IncubateIND, will see advertisers from big brands across industries present their problem statements. Participants are then expected to come up with a solution and present their proposals after a 30-hour nonstop hackathon.

    As mobile continues to occupy maximum time and attention of consumers today, brands need to seek new and innovative ways to stand out and effectively reach their consumers. More than a place to share ideas, the Ideathon will also act as a platform for industry practitioners and students to network. 

    “The rapid growth of mobile adoption in India alongside the competitive landscape it operates in prompts companies to rethink their strategies when it comes to growing their businesses,” said Moneka Khurana, Country Head at MMA India. “The Ideathon will bring fresh insights from some of the best and most creative young minds in Bangalore, challenging brands to think outside the box and look at the multitude of possibilities mobile presents.”  

    Brands that will be participating in the Ideathon include Unilever, Vodafone, Tata Chemicals Limited, and Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. Despite coming from different industries, they all face challenges when it comes to engagement on different levels, especially in a mobile environment. This Ideathon provides a platform for brands to bring their individual problems to light, allowing the younger generation to use their creativity and talent as they do a deep dive into individual brand issues, providing solutions that are relevant to todays mobile audience. (Individual brand problem statements can be found here)

    “Vodafone seeks to partner India and the world in building a future which is exciting. In an era of technology, via this MMA Ideathon, we are keen to see some innovative and creative solutions coming from these young minds who are working on the designated briefs. It will certainly be interesting to watch how these young teams approach complex business and brand problems of today, and I’m sure there will be several fabulous nuggets to takeaway for the participants as well as the jury,” said Siddharth Banerjee, EVP-Marketing, Vodafone India.

    “Most of us (the business and marketing fraternity) have been solving business problems or marketing challenges, and connecting with consumers in a particular way for decades now. Through this Ideathon, the future generation will get a chance to tackle real-life scenarios and will empower them to speak their minds and come up with a possible solution which we might not have thought of. It is also a good opportunity for us to meet these young talents and possibly work with them in the future”, said Pankaj Parihar, Vice President & Head, Digital Marketing & Transformation, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. 

    “Events like this are a great way for brands to hear from a generation of young talents who grew up in a mobile-first environment. Likewise, this Ideathon will allow future technopreneurs to get real insights from brands,” said Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, MMA Asia Pacific. He added that while this is only the first event of this nature, he looks forward to seeing more events like this hosted by MMA across the region.

  • HUL top advertiser; Dettol enters top 5 in BARC week 32

    HUL top advertiser; Dettol enters top 5 in BARC week 32

    MUMBAI: The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has released its data for last week’s top advertisers and brands between 4 August to 10 August 2018.

    The data is a reflection of top 10 advertiser and brands across genre on Indian television (U+R): 2+ Individuals. It demonstrates ads that were inserted the most in week 32 of 2018. 

    Top Advertisers: 

    For week 32, Hindustan Unilever Ltd retained its position as the top advertiser and led with 137938 ad insertions on television. HUL’s products include foods, beverages, cleaning agents, personal care products and water purifiers.

    Reckitt Benckiser Ltd, maker of Dettol, Veet, Durex condoms, Strepsils, Air Wick, Harpic among others jumped to second position with 112004 ad insertions as last week.

    Kolkata based ITC Ltd moved a position down with 54110 ad insertions followed by Procter & Gamble with 36058 ads. ITC has a diversified business that includes Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), hotels, paperboards and packaging, agribusiness and information technology.

    Dairy Milk manufacturer Cadbury India entered the top five list and stood at fifth position this week with 32363 ad insertions.

    Top Brands:

    Cleaning and disinfecting product Lizol was advertised the most and topped the charts with 16924 ad insertions in week 31. Lizol entered the top 5 brands list after a hiatus of a week where it stood at number three in week 30.

    Santoor sandal and turmeric soap jumped from its week 31’s third position, to become the second most advertised brand in week 32 with a startling 13916 ad insertions.

    The Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare that been in the top two list for last few weeks, dipped a position down and became the third most advertised brand this week with 12941 ad insertions. 

    Reckitt Benckiser had two products from its umbrella from the house of Dettol enter into the list of top five most advertised brand. While Dettol Liquid soap retained the fourth position with12810 ad insertions, Dettol cool soap had 11463 ad insertions in week 32.

  • Paytm Mall targets $10 bn annualised gross sales by 2019

    Paytm Mall targets $10 bn annualised gross sales by 2019

    MUMBAI With the aim to garner a bigger slice of India’s growing online retail market, Paytm Mall, owned by Paytm e-commerce, has ramped-up its efforts to expand the business. The company is aiming for a three-fold rise in annualised gross sales and aims to achieve the $10 billion mark by March 2019.

    Paytm e-commerce, which runs the online marketplace, achieved $3.5 billion in annualised gross sales in June 2018. This robust performance has made it a strong No. 3 contender in the local e-commerce market within a year of its launch. By March’19, Paytm Mall expects unit orders to jump to 1-1.5 million orders per day, from about 625,000 currently.

    Paytm Mall has raised about $650 million since its inception in April 2017. During its latest fundraise the company raised about $450 million from Japan’s SoftBank Group, and it is currently valued at about $2 billion. Shareholders in Paytm e-commerce include Alibaba Group, Ant Financial, SAIF Partners and founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

    For Paytm Mall, the largest categories by value include appliances, laptops, and mobiles with the daily needs category generating the maximum number of orders. The company plans to expand its fashion and home business this year. Paytm Mall plans to create differentiation in the market by not having an inventory-led business model. Instead, it aims to promote the O2O (offline to online) model in India.

    It currently offers same-day delivery and O2O deliveries in the top 15 cities including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad. The company plans to further expand its services to 25 cities including Kota, Jabalpur, Dehradun, and Indore, among others by Diwali.

    Paytm Mall COO Amit Sinha says, “We are excited to witness the growth of the Indian retail market and we have ramped up our efforts to expand our business to meet its ever-growing demands. We are building an O2O model offering same day deliveries to top 15 cities and will be further expanding our services to 25 cities across the country. Our partnership with brands/merchants and their offline retail stores is driving an important opportunity for them to increase their business while building engagement with their customers.”

    Paytm Mall’s O2O operating model is aiming to leverage India’s 15 million offline retail shops to participate in India’s e-commerce boom. The company currently works with offline stores in partnership with brands such as Samsung, LG, Lenovo, Intel, Red Tape, Canon, HP, Godrej, and Hitachi.

  • Conekt to connect Indians with quality electronic accessories

    Conekt to connect Indians with quality electronic accessories

    MUMBAI: What started off as a personal need for two young entrepreneurs, has shaped into a full fledged technology company. Conekt, a gadget and smart phone technology accessories brand has forayed into the already cluttered space of accessories technology where consumers can choose from over 1000 products ranging from data cables to earphones and car mounts.

    What’s interesting is the fact that Conekt announced its launch in the market with its brand ambassador and cricketer Rohit Sharma. It’s pretty unusual for a brand to have an endorser from day one and that’s what the co founders Pradeep Yerraguntla and Aashish Kumbhat got right! And why wouldn’t they! With a startup capital of $2 million, the founders invested strategically on getting a brand ambassador and R&D.

    Currently, Conekt has products such as power banks, data cables, wall chargers, wireless chargers and earphones in its portfolio but is actively looking at expanding the range.

    Yerraguntla however thought of launching a company with the need to have all products under one umbrella so the consumer doesn’t have to buy 10 different products from different companies. He says, “Apple users always keep complaining that their chargers don’t work long enough and break only after 8-12 months of use. That’s when we thought to ourselves, whether it’s really that difficult to come up with a quality charger or accessories. While most mobile manufacturers concentrate on building quality mobiles, they often forget to build quality accessories. We wanted to change that.”

    While the products start from as low as Rs 399 for a pair of earphones, they go up as high as Rs 3499 for a power bank. The co-founders like to call themselves a mix of both world with products in mid-level and premium range.

    But Conekt will have to face stiff competition from local players and products that are built wise merely moderate but available at a much cheaper price point. And who doesn’t like saving some extra bucks! The company however wants to change the Indian mentality about investing in quality products rather than just buying something which will only last a couple of months. With this, they will not be competing with small players but directly with the Samsung and Apple of the world.

    Distribution is key. Conekt products will be available on Flipkart, Amazon and Paytm Mall from 20 August along with a strong distribution channel of 5000 retail outlets in the first phase of launch. The startup is looking at targeting metros and district headquarters for now and will gradually move in to tap the rural consumer in tier II and tier III towns.

    While launching a product or a company is relatively easy, sustaining the momentum in the long run is where most startups get it wrong. What better way for this than to advertise your product on all available platforms, especially television, the leader of all marketing expenses!

    Stating that the prime focus for the company will remain digital and BTL for all marketing initiatives, Ashish said that they will “have to” launch a television commercial during the festive season with Rohit Sharma to reach the audience at a mass level, even though they want to restrict their ad-spends on digital medium.

    Since there is no warranty/guarantee available on technology accessories, it is also one of those categories where demand will always keep pouring in as products will continue to keep getting damaged and consumers will keep coming back for new, replaced products. At such point, this poses another threat for Conekt which wants to deliver quality products with two years of warranty on its products. Being optimistic, Kumbhat says, “Most people don’t invest in accessories because they know it won’t last long enough, We are not worried about one time sale as we are in for the long game.”

    With only a day in the market, Conekt is already looking at international market and wants to expand globally. With everything in place and Indian sales channel all set up, the founders target the launch overseas by the end of financial year 2018-19.

    In the end, it’s a breath of fresh air to see a brand be conscious of what they deliver to the consumers and wants to focus on quality products rather than just giving out sub standard products so they keep coming back. As they say, competition is always healthy and calls for a level playing field, but whether the Indian cost conscious consumers will ‘Conekt’ with the products or not, only time and the next financial year will tell.

  • White Rivers Media celebrates 6th anniversary

    White Rivers Media celebrates 6th anniversary

    MUMBAI: In India, one of the fastest growing independent agencies White Rivers Media has recently completed its six years in social media and digital marketing industry.  To celebrate the same, it has sent personalised thank-you messages to all individuals who have been a part of the journey.

    The company founded in 2012, has been the only digital marketing agency to be awarded the Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 twice, consecutively in 2016 and 2017. The core verticals of the company are digital, design, social and video to clients in B2B and B2C space, across industry verticals.

    As a give back to the industry, the agency has launched an e-book on Everything a marketer needs to know about #Hashtags. The book contains essentials, best practices and some crazy global bloopers. The same has been chosen given the fact, that a lot of brands across the globe still make hashtag errors or don’t use it optimally across digital and in adaptations in offline.

    Link to e-book: http://whiteriversmedia.com/eBook

    Speaking on the occasion White Rivers Media CEO Shrenik Gandhi said, “As we complete six years in the industry, we would like to thank everyone who has been a part of growth journey and helped us reach here. The industry has grown with break-neck speed and I strongly believe, this is just the beginning. Exciting times ahead!”

    White Rivers Media co-founder Mitesh Kothari added,“We have done some interesting work for brands across sectors in the last six years, and we look forward to building more meaningful and stronger connections with stakeholders across the industry. We look forward to this year as becoming one of the top mar-tech driven communication partner to brands across the country. The past years have been of learning un-learning and re-learning and we are eager to know what is stored for us in the future.”

    This e-book is one of the many to follow which White Rivers Media shall launch in due course of time, covering various topics concerning Indian and global digital marketers.

    Along with this the agency also ran an extension to its award-winning digital campaign, Honesty Breaks Clutter.

  • Qatar Airways is the Prestige Partner and Official Airline of the 18th Asian Games Jakarta Palembang 2018

    Qatar Airways is the Prestige Partner and Official Airline of the 18th Asian Games Jakarta Palembang 2018

    MUMBAI: Qatar Airways is proud to announce that it is the Prestige Partner and Official Airline of the 18th Asian Games Jakarta Palembang 2018, taking place in Jakarta and Palembang, Indonesia, from 18 August until 2 September 2018. The highly-anticipated sporting event will bring athletes from 45 participating nations to Jakarta and Palembang to compete for the coveted prizes.

    To mark this occasion, a high-level signing ceremony took place in Jakarta, Indonesia on 9 August 2018, in the presence of the Vice President of the Republic of Indonesia, His Excellency Mr. Jusuf Kalla; the Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Republic of Indonesia, His Excellency Mr. Ahmed bin Jassim Al-Hamar and the President of the Indonesian Asian Games 2018 Organising Committee (INASGOC), Mr. Erick Thohir.

    Following the tremendous success of the 2018 FIFA World Cup RussiaTM, of which Qatar Airways was the Official Partner and Official Airline, the national carrier of the State of Qatar has now shifted its focus from Russia to Asia, to expand its global portfolio and celebrate its strong ties across the continent.

    Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker, said: “Qatar Airways is delighted to be the Prestige Partner and Official Airline of the 18th Asian Games Jakarta Palembang 2018, and to once more unite fans from around the world through a shared love of sport. This highly-anticipated event strengthens our extensive global sporting portfolio and asserts our continuous dedication to celebrating sports as a means of bringing people together. We are tremendously proud to be flying the Qatar team of more than 200 athletes to Jakarta for the event, and we look forward to welcoming all fans to Jakarta and Palembang.”

    Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Republic of Indonesia, His Excellency Mr. Ahmed bin Jassim Al-Hamar, said: “I am very proud that Qatar’s multiple award-winning national flag carrier, Qatar Airways is the Prestige Partner and Official Airline of the 18th Asian Games. This is a significant and historic moment for the State of Qatar and the Republic of Indonesia and will further strengthen the already strong bonds that exist between the two nations.

    This important partnership will further increase tourism and business links between Qatar and Indonesia as well as extending Qatar’s warm hospitality and welcoming culture to the people of Indonesia and fans from around the world. We look forward to continuing to deepen relations between the Qatari and Indonesian people and wish all teams the best of luck.”

    President of the Indonesian Asian Games 2018 Organising Committee (INASGOC), Mr. Erick Thohir, said: “We greatly appreciate Qatar Airways’ support of the Asian Games 2018 and look forward to the success of this new and exciting partnership. This event is not an ordinary sports tournament, but an important occasion that promotes both peace and unity between countries in Asia. We wish all participating nations the best of luck in this memorable world-class event.”

    This is the second time that Qatar Airways has sponsored the Asian Games; the national carrier of the State of Qatar was also the Official Airline of the 15th Asian Games Doha 2006, where it proudly welcomed thousands of fans from around the world to watch the games unfold in what was the biggest sporting event in the history of Qatar. Qatar Airways wishes Qatar’s national team all the best in the competition.

    The Asian Games is a pancontinental multi-sport event held every four years and is the second largest multi-sport event after the Olympic Games. The prestigious competition is organised by the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), and will include 61 sporting disciplines in more than 40 facilities throughout the two host cities. Qatar Airways will proudly fly the Qatar team, consisting of more than 200 athletes, to Jakarta for the event.

    The award-winning airline currently provides triple-daily services to Jakarta, served by a Boeing 787-8 aircraft, featuring 22 seats in Business Class and 232 seats in Economy Class, and triple-daily services to Denpasar, served by a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, featuring 24 seats in Business Class and 388 seats in Economy Class.

    In May 2017, Qatar Airways announced a ground-breaking sponsorship deal with FIFA, which saw the award-winning airline become the Official Partner and Official Airline of FIFA until 2022. The partnership, one of the biggest sporting sponsorships in the world, will give Qatar Airways extensive marketing and branding rights at the 2022 World Cup Qatar™, with an expected audience reach of more than two billion people.

    The agreement sees Qatar Airways become the Official Airline Partner of the FIFA Club World Cup™, the FIFA Women’s World Cup™, the FIFA Under-20 and Under 17 World Cups™, the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup™, and the FIFA Interactive World Cup™.

    In addition to its existing partnership with the German football club giants FC Bayern München AG, for which it is a Platinum Partner, Qatar Airways also recently revealed multi-year sponsorship agreements with Italian football club AS Roma, for which it will become the Official Jersey Sponsor; and with Argentinian football club Boca Juniors, for which it will become the Official Jersey Sponsor.

    Qatar Airways made headline news last month at the Farnborough International Airshow 2018, with a number of high-profile announcements and award wins. The airline picked up four prestigious awards at this year’s 2018 Skytrax World Airline Awards, being named ‘World’s Best Business Class’ for the sixth time and third consecutive year; ‘Best Airline In The Middle East’, ‘World’s Best First Class Airline Lounge’ and ‘Best Business Class Seat’, in recognition of its ground-breaking Business Class experience, Qsuite.

    Qatar Airways currently operates a modern fleet of more than 200 aircraft via its home and hub, Hamad International Airport (HIA), to more than 150 destinations worldwide. Earlier this year, Qatar Airways revealed a host of forthcoming global destinations in line with its expedited expansion plans, including Tallinn, Estonia; Valletta, Malta; Langkawi, Malaysia and Da Nang, Vietnam.

  • Post flight MH370 fiasco, Malaysian tourism faces uphill battle

    Post flight MH370 fiasco, Malaysian tourism faces uphill battle

    MUMBAI: “Malaysia, truly Asia!” Or is it? What was once the hottest vacation destinations is now not so popular. All because of the disappearance of Malaysian airline MH370 in 2014. The country’s tourism, which was once booming with international tourists, has now taken a hit as tourists have been avoiding the country in the wake of the incident.

    The country has since been reeling to get back on its feet and increase tourist footfall. Although Malaysia ranks ninth in the world for tourist arrivals, it faces severe competition from other countries.

    Bollywood has had a long love affair with beautiful locations in Malaysia and the country has heavily promoted in Roy, Shaadi Se Pehle, Yaadein and Shahrukh Khan’s remake of Don as Don 2. In 2016, Tourism Malaysia, together with AirTravel Enterprises India Limited (ATE), introduced the Malaysia Kabali-package deal during the launch of Rajnikant led movie Kabali. This was a part of its strategy to draw Indian travellers to Malaysia where there is already a sizable Indian community.

    Travel and tourism is one of the world’s fastest-growing sectors today, with close to $1.6 trillion clocked in bookings in 2017. Each year, the global traveller pool is flooded with millions of new consumers from both emerging and developed markets, many with rising disposable incomes and a newfound ability to experience the world.

    As many as 2.8 crore Indians travel to international destinations every year. Places like Dubai, Switzerland, Maldives, Macau, Bali, Singapore, Thailand among few others, have always been popular among Indians. Malaysia, that was once India’s favourite tourist spot, seems to have lost its sheen with newer destinations being discovered by the millennial generation.

    While Tourism Malaysia director Mohammed Hafiz Hashim realises the stiff competition in the tourism industry with new emerging tourism destinations, he remains positive that Malaysia is a popular tourist destination among Indians and just needs constant reminders.

    According to a 2017 report by TripAdvisor, for globetrotting Indians preferred travelling to Dubai, Singapore, Bangkok and Pattaya, while the evolved and well-heeled Indians sought relatively unexplored destinations such as Genoa in Italy, Corsica in France, Bora Bora and Iceland.

    In an effort to diversify the economy and make Malaysia’s economy less dependent on exports, the government push to increase tourism has resulted in it being the third largest source of foreign exchange income that accounts for 20 per cent of Malaysia’s economy.

    The country sees tourists majorly from Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Japan, Korea and India. India has always been in the top 10 markets for Malaysia with a 10 per cent share out of the total 27 million tourists every year. Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board (MTPB) wants to put India in the top five counties by the end of 2018. For Malaysia, 1.7 lakh of its visitors come from India every year, with most travelling between April-June and November-January.

    To tap in new consumers, the board now wants to shift focus from the hygiene urban population to tier II and tier III towns. But does the consumer living in a village have budget to spare and travel internationally? Tourism Malaysia director definitely thinks so! Hashim believes that the audience in smaller segments of India definitely has the budget but don’t know what to do with the money and that’s where agents help them in planning and deciding. Although the numbers from the smaller segment aren’t astounding with less than 20 per cent growth y-o-y, he is optimistic that it will grow further in the next year.

    Travel ads are usually targeted at those with enough funds to spare for travel. Hence, it makes more sense for them to advertise on lifestyle and infotainment channels along with B2B marketing. And that’s exactly what most tourism companies do. However, Tourism Malaysia has no plan of launching the campaign on television due to budget constraints and it will only be digital-led since it is cheap, efficient and quick.

    The tourism board is trying to get local (Indian) carriers to fly to Malaysia as currently there are no direct outbound flights to Malaysia. Raising the concern, Hashim said, “We only rely on our own Malaysian airlines to carry passengers. If we can get Indian players like Indigo, Jet Airways, Air India or Vistara to fly to us, we can get good numbers.”

    For this, Tourism of Malaysia is in conversation with the government of India and private players to get the landing rights for Malaysia. It is confident that the conversation will prove to be a success and direct flights for Malaysia will begin as soon as December 2018.

    The challenge for Malaysia now is not just to market itself better than others but also regenerate interest among Indians. The country will also have to change its communication to target the Gen-Z and young consumers. Since the company doesn’t advertise on television or digital at a large scale, it will have a challenging time to ensure its place in a traveller’s bucket list.

  • Publicis Entertainment opens in India with ‘Sanju’ campaign

    Publicis Entertainment opens in India with ‘Sanju’ campaign

    MUMBAI: Motion picture production and distribution giant Fox Star Studios has brought Publicis Entertainment on board as its digital and social media marketing partner. Publicis Entertainment is the recently unveiled entertainment marketing and branded entertainment arm of Publicis Communications.

    Speaking about the association with Publicis Entertainment and Indigo Consulting, a spokesperson from Fox Star Studios said: “At Fox Star Studios we were looking for a partner that could best bring out the magic of Sanju’s story digitally. Publicis Entertainment and Indigo Consulting were the partners that understood this the best, and we worked closely with them on the film.”

    Commenting on the tie-up with Fox Star Studios for the promotion of Sanju , Publicis Entertainment executive director Pranay Anthwal said, “It is a pleasure to work with a marketing team like Fox Star Studios. Sanju is the first of many special films we will be working on for them. We worked closely with Indigo Consulting for this project, starting with putting together a specialist team comprising India’s finest social creative and digital marketing minds”

    “The project team ensured that we not only were on top of the social piece but also indexed most of our product and effort to the holy grail ticket sales. We look forward to a fruitful association with Fox Star Studios,” he added.

    Indigo Consulting CEO Rajesh Ghatge added, “The digital platform allows a dialogue; it facilitates conversations and participation. A movie experience now is no longer limited to the show in the theatre – it extends before, during and after screenings. The experience allows deep discovery of the characters, stars, the subject and also artistes who have made it happen. We are excited to have partnered Fox Star in driving the digital mandate of Sanju. We got an opportunity to strategically and creatively drive its narrative and engagement on digital with the use of data led insights, nimble content and interesting platforms.”

    As a part of the association Publicis Entertainment, along with Indigo Consulting, launched an integrated digital campaign to promote Bollywood blockbuster film Sanju. The movie is a biopic of actor Sanjay Dutt.

  • CCI approves 16$ bn acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart

    CCI approves 16$ bn acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart

    MUMBAI: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved American retail giant Walmart’s $16 billion acquisition of online marketplace Flipkart. In May, Walmart acquired a 77 per cent stake in Indian e-commerce company.

    With this, Walmart will compete directly with Amazon India in the fast growing e-commerce market. 

    This is the biggest deal for India’s e-commerce sector, which is estimated to grow close to an annual $200 billion in 10 years. The acquisition will give Walmart a strong foothold in Asia’s third largest economy where the company has struggled to expand due to restrictions on foreign investment in retail stores

    In a Twitter post, the CCI has given a heads up to the proposed acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart. The board, in its order, also added that the issue of Flipkart’s discounting practices would be dealt with separately in the upcoming e-commerce policy. 

     

    The regulatory board also mentioned that the discounting practices by Flipkart may have to be reviewed by the relevant authorities, which will put pressure on regulators to clamp down on discounts on online platforms. 

    Responding to CCI’s approval, Walmart said that the company is committed to contributing to the Indian economy by supporting farmers, businesses run by women in India and small and medium suppliers. 

    The statement read: Flipkart is a prominent player in India with a strong, entrepreneurial leadership team that is a good cultural fit with Walmart.

    Soon after the CCI’s approval on the deal, local trader body, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) opposed the Flipkart-Walmart deal on the ground that the acquisition will create unfair competition and drive local convenience stores out of business. 

    CAIT’s secretary general Praveen Khandelwal said to Reuters, “We will certainly move the court against the CCI’s decision. CAIT has called an emergency meeting of its governing council on August 19 at Nagpur, where we will finalise our strategy for a nationwide movement.”