From ETtech.com

  • Microsoft to invest $1.7 billion in cloud, AI in Indonesia, CEO says

    Microsoft will invest $1.7 billion in Indonesia to empower the Southeast Asian country with cloud and artificial intelligence, including by building data centres, visiting chief executive Satya Nadella said in a seminar on Tuesday.

  • Google lays off employees from key teams ahead of developer conference: report

    Tech giant Google has terminated employees from its Flutter, Dart and Python teams weeks before its annual developer conference, TechCrunch reported, citing social media posts of impacted staff.A spokesperson for Google told the news portal that to prepare for opportunities ahead, the tech giant has made changes to its teams through the second half of 2023 and into 2024 to be more efficient. We’re simplifying our structures to give employees more opportunity to work on our most innovative and...

  • Samsung: Samsung reports a 10-fold increase in profit as AI drives rebound in memory chip markets

    Samsung Electronics on Tuesday reported a 10-fold increase in operating profit for the last quarter as the expansion of artificial intelligence technologies drives a rebound in the markets for computer memory chips. The South Korean semiconductor and smartphone giant said its operating profit for the Jan-March quarter came in at 6.6 trillion won ($4.8 billion), up from the 640 billion won ($465 million) it earned during the same period last year. Revenue rose by nearly 13% to 71.9 trillion won...

  • End of Paytm’s existing wallet biz; Tribe Capital’s India play

    Happy Tuesday! Regulatory actions have crippled Paytm Payments Bank’s mobile wallet business. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.Also in this letter:■ BluSmart FY24 revenue jumps■ Drop in renewal deals troubles IT cos■ Ola Cabs CEO Hemant Bakshi resignsPaytm Payments Bank’s mobile wallet business in a spot 109708584Paytm Payments Bank is staring at an uncertain future after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) asked the bank to stop offering basic banking...

  • srinivas pallia salary: Wipro’s new CEO Srinivas Pallia to get max pay of $7 million

    Wipro’s new CEO and MD, Srinivas Pallia, will receive a maximum compensation of $7 million per annum for the first two years, including a cash compensation that may range from a minimum of $1.75 million and a maximum of $3 million per annum.The IT major in a filing with BSE also said that the former CEO, Thierry Delaporte will be paid $4.33 million in the form of cash compensation and applicable social security contributions, subject to appropriate deductions. Meanwhile another exchange filing...

  • Big Tech says ex-ante antitrust regulations will hurt innovation

    The ex-ante regulations proposed in the draft Digital Competition Bill to pre-empt certain practices is a significant departure from the current system and will come with trade-offs that have an impact on user experience and innovation like the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) had with its rigid rules, executives at a Big Tech company told ET.No matter how carefully crafted an ex-ante regime is, it will still have these negative impacts, they said, even as the government extended the...

  • BluSmart rides out of FY24 with Rs 390-crore revenue in the boot

    BluSmart, a ride-hailing startup focusing on electric vehicles, posted more than Rs 390 crore in revenue in fiscal 2024, compared with about Rs 160 crore in FY23, cofounder Punit Goyal told ET.The firm has also crossed Rs 500 crore in annualised revenue run rate (ARR), he added. BluSmart competes with Uber and Ola, as well as new entrants like Rapido and Namma Yatri in the cab-hailing space.BluSmart is much smaller compared with Ola and Uber and operates only in two cities: Bengaluru and the...

  • Tribe Capital’s new SPV set to put $75 million more in Shiprocket

    Silicon Valley-headquartered fund Tribe Capital is doubling down on ecommerce logistics startup Shiprocket through its newly set up special purpose vehicle (SPV) in India.Tribe’s cofounder, Arjun Sethi, told ET in an interaction that the SPV will not only invest in but also build and buy out companies here — a departure from the typical framework under which global venture capital firms operate in India.The SPV will invest $75 million in Shiprocket, where the fund is already the largest...

  • Paytm Payments Bank’s wallet business fading fast as restrictions bite

    The regulatory action on Paytm Payments Bank has brought the mobile wallet business of the entity, one of its most popular offerings, to a grinding halt. While it cannot add new customers as per the Reserve Bank of India diktat, transactions on the platform have fallen drastically over the last three months as consumers slowly move out of Paytm Payments Bank’s wallet ecosystem.According to data released by the RBI, Paytm Payments Bank reported 7.4 million fund transfer transactions in its...

  • Drop in renewal deals poses revenue challenge for top IT firms

    Despite record deals announced in the final quarter of 2023-24, the deal momentum has slowed down from a year ago as companies are witnessing clients signing more net new and transformational deals rather than renewing old deals. The new deals are often of smaller value, leading to a dip in the revenue of software companies primarily due to lesser discretionary expenditure by client firms. This has also resulted in vendor consolidation and slower decision-making on larger deals, said...

  • Axel Springer to migrate some cloud applications to Microsoft's Azure

    Global news publisher Axel Springer will migrate some of its cloud-based applications to Microsoft's Azure and work with the firm on bolstering its AI capabilities, the companies said on Monday, as they expanded their partnership. Axel Springer will also work with the tech giant to launch an AI-driven chat experience, which will feature content from the news publisher, the companies said. The deal will build on Axel Springers initiatives such as its AI assistant Hey_ which is powered by Azure...

  • Birlasoft’s net profit grew 11.8% to Rs 180 crore

    C K Birla group’s IT firm, Birlasoft reported a net profit of Rs 180 crore in the March quarter of FY24, up 11.8% quarter on quarter (QoQ). The profit for the company grew by a whopping 60.5% on-year.The growth in profit in Q4 comes on the back of surge in non-core income, slight increase in operating margin and a decline in employee expenses. Operating margin jacked up by 33 bps (3.8% QoQ) to end at 14.7% in the final quarter of FY24.The revenue for the Pune-based company in Q4 stood at Rs...