More Chinese apps are under scrutiny in India even as the government undertook a second round of app ban in the country.
Meanwhile, smaller towns are aiding the recovery in demand for online beauty firms to pre-Covid-19 levels.
App Ban 2.0
The Indian government has issued an order to ban 47 apps that were essentially variants of the 59 Chinese apps that were outlawed earlier.
This order comes close on the heels of the government’s warning to these app makers to ensure that none of the banned apps were available for download or installation, either directly or indirectly last week.
More apps under scanner
India has also drawn up a list of 275 Chinese apps to examine for any violation of national security and user privacy, ET reported on Monday, indicating that more apps could be banned in the forthcoming future.
Prominent apps in the list include Tencent-backed gaming app PUBG, ByteDance-owned Resso and ULike, Alibaba’s AliExpress and Xiaomi’s Zili.
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Demand for online beauty category rebounds
Online beauty firms like Nykaa Brands, Sugar Cosmetics, Wow Skin Science and Juicy Chemistry are seeing a revival in consumer demand to pre-Covid-19 levels, aided by small cities and “revenge shopping”.
This comes after the segment faced a 70-80% drop in business during the initial months of the nationwide lockdown.
What sort of growth are companies seeing?
- For beauty brand Wow Skin Science, demand in June-July grew 2.5 times compared to the pre-Covid-19 months, said cofounder Manish Chowdhary.
- Natural cosmetics brand Juicy Chemistry saw a 100% jump in sales in June and a 150% hike this month compared to the pre-Covid-19 period.
- Makeup and beauty brand Sugar Cosmetics has revised its revenue targets to Rs 150-160 crore for this year, following the renewed demand for makeup products. It had earlier brought down its revenue projections for this year to Rs 130 crore from Rs 200 crore due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
- For online cosmetics store Purplle, sales in categories like skincare, haircare, bath, and body saw an uptick of 50-70% compared to February this year.
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Zee5‘s new pricing strategy
Essel Group’s Zee5 has introduced a new entry-level plan called Zee5 Club, as it looks to increase its subscriber base in a competitive market. This will be the company’s second subscription package in the country, apart from the existing All Access pack that’s available anywhere between Rs 99 per month and Rs 999 per year.
Why is this significant?
With this plan, what Zee5 has effectively done is culling out a value pack of sorts, for an audience who are keen on watching regular daily television soaps and live television while providing them a taste of its web originals.
Keeping this in mind, original shows being offered through this plan are essentially limited to, what could be termed as ‘family-friendly’ themes like soap drama, romance, and light comedy. Shows with edgier, bold and risque themes will still be available only to the service’s premium subscribers along with the latest blockbuster movies.
Netflix’s pricing experiment
Rival Netflix, which is among the costliest video streaming service in the country, is approaching a similar problem but from a product feature perspective. It is currently testing a Rs 349 entry-level plan that provides a single stream on their mobile, tablet or computer screen at a time, except for television support.
Last year, it debuted a mobile-only plan at Rs 199 per month and also piloted weekly membership, discounted long-term subscriptions as well as free content access to non-members in the country for a limited time.
Steadview’s India bet
Steadview Capital has bulked up its India portfolio by investing $85 million in software-as-a-service (SaaS) major Freshworks through a secondary transaction.
This was Steadview’s ninth investment in an Indian privately-held technology company, which is valued at more than $1 billion. Overall, Steadview has pumped over $500 million into 20 Indian private tech companies over the last two years. Including public companies, the London-based firm has invested $2 billion in the country.
What’s the plan?
Steadview managing director Ravi Mehta said they will continue placing bets at the same pace in India and may even increase it over the next two years. They will now look to double down on certain sectors that benefited from the pandemic, such as SaaS, ed-tech, and gaming.
This, however, comes at a time when investors, across stages and sectors, have largely slowed their activity, as they wait for the economy to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and the nationwide-enforced lockdown. Read more.
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SAP‘s Qualtrics spin-off
Business software maker SAP plans to hive off its largest acquisition Qualtrics in less than two years of buying the firm. It now plans to take the company public through an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States.
The IPO will increase Qualtrics’ autonomy and enable it to expand its footprint both within SAP’s customer base and beyond, the company said.
SAP will retain majority ownership after the IPO and while Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith will be the largest individual shareholder. The IPO could value Qualtrics at $18.7 billion, more than double of its $8 billion acquisition price, according to Bloomberg.
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