Retail Chronicles_13

YOU CANNOT GET INTO BUSINESS
FOR THE FASHION OF IT
- azim premji

03
India,
HOW GST
WILL IMPACT
OUR DIWALI
BUDGET
the new
fastest growing economy
India seems to have regained the position of
world's fastest-growing important economy in the
October-December quarter, because of higher
government spending which has lead to increase in
.
manufacturing and other activity especially
agriculture. India lost the position of worlds fastest
growing major economy to China 1 year back
because of demonetization and implementation of
GST which impacted a lot of sectors. The expected
growth forecasts ranged from 6.4 percent to 7.3
percent and the median growth according to
returner will be 6.9 percent of this financial year.
Despite global concern over the various banking
scam happening in India, India seems to still retain
investor sentiment and goodwill though the PNB
and other bad deeds has reduced Indian banking
credibility which was known earlier for strict
adherence to rules.
According to the estimates, if the growth rate will
remain 6.9 percent, that will be better than China's
6.8 percent annual pace for October-December. In
this quarter, India seems to have overtaken China
in the growth centric economical model. The last
time India had a faster growth rate was in 2016.
The expected improvement will comes from India’s
service and manufacturing sector. Even other
sectors seems to be going on an upward
trajectories.
"After muted activity until September, signs of a
pick-up in economic growth are starting to appear,"
said Aditi Nayar, principal economist at ICRA, the
India arm of rating agency Moody's.
This was result of lowering demand across India
and lack of liquidity in the market because of
demonetization. Also credible and strong GDP
reading could lift domestic sentiments, and
improve the profile of Indian rupees which has
suffered a lot and has fallen second most across
Asia having bad impact on our imports.
These optimistic GDP data will surely help Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, who is facing a lot of
criticism over ever increasing bad loans of state
banks and also increasing number of frauds
especially $1.77 billion fraud at state lender Punjab
National Bank , which people are indirectly blaming
present government from taking measure to
control or prevent it.
By Vikas Khetan

GDP data can give respite that all is not bad for
economy after all. Last week, Government told
industrialist about despite the problem of NPA
and fraud in banking sectors, government is
trying to improve them and put them back to
normal which will indeed give country GDP good
economical boost.
Government is trying to accelerate growth
through higher central spending in
infrastructure and initiating various economic
reforms to correct the growth rate by increasing
demand. Not just that government in giving a
large sum which includes $32.36 billion for
recapitalisation of state banks, beset with
mounting bad loans of nearly $148 billion, to
solve NPA mess and help banks with its
finances.
A . lot of spending was undertaken in
infrastructure and social benefits projects to
boost not just government electoral prospect
but also to increase demand. Though this has
widened the fiscal deficit for the current fiscal
year, ending in March, to 3.5 percent of GDP,
instead of the earlier
projected 3.2 percent which is again not a good
news. To balance government has increase the tax
net by implementation of GST which has increased
government tax collection by 20 percent.
Due to massive structural improvement of Indian
economy in past few years, Moody's had raised
India's investment grade rating one notch, which
last happened 14 . years back. Not just that, India has
improved its rating in easy to do business- jumping
30 places above to break into the top 100 for the
first time in World Bank's Doing Business report
2018.
The International Monetary Fund has very optimistic
forecast for India's economic growth. According to
IMF, Indian economy could reach 7.4 percent in 2018
and 7.8 percent in 2019, overtaking rates projected
for China of 6.5 percent and 6.4 percent,
respectively. Though, still the worlds 7 largest
economy is far from showing its true potential and
growth rate as both domestic demand and private
investment in not increasing at a good rate.
04

BIOPIC –
VIJAY SHEKHAR SHARMA
By: Aditi Barde
“Hustler” – the one word that aptly
describes the startup maestro Vijay
Shekhar Sharma. Vijay surprisingly
completed his engineering at the
age when he was only 19.Also a
self-taught programmer, a child
prodigy, an entrepreneur in college,
and now the founder of one of
India’s most renowned and valuable
fintech startup.He has been
hustling his way to success
through all the thicks and thins of
his life. Being a son of a school
teacher froma small city North
India, Vijay Shekhar Sharma
founded fast-rising mobile wallet
Paytm in 2010.
In 1997 during his collge days, he
started the website indiasite.net and
sold it two years later for $1 Mn.
He started One97 (Paytm’s parent
company) with a loan of $12,525
(INR 8 lakhs) and when the
repayment became tough, he did
not shy away from taking up all
orts of jobs to make ends meet like
setting up LAN connections,
delivering guest lectures and so on
to make ends meet.
From there to reaching 230 Mn
customers on Paytm to launching
Paytm Payments Bank to making
his debut on the Forbes Billionaire
list with a net worth of $1.3 Bn as
well as on the 6th “Hurun India
Rich List 2017” to buying a $12.72
Mn (INR 82 Cr) worth 6,000 ft.
residential propertyin Lutyen’s
Delhi, Vijay Shekhar Sharma has
come a long way.
07

08
So while this year has been the year
of fintech for the Indian startup
ecosystem, it was the year of Paytm.
But more than all these accolades,
was the $1.4 Bn funding from
SoftBank Group, the Japanese
Internet and telecom major, which is
a big endorsement for the fintech
startup. Being one of the biggest
bets of Softbank in India Paytm has
received just the right kind of fuel to
fire its course further.
Vijay within his team is known as the
Resident DJ of Paytm. One more
interesting fact about Mr. Sharma is
that he is the only Indian along with
our Prime Minister PM Modi who
made it to the TIME Magazine’s 100
Most Influential People list in
2017.Sharma was also named as UN
Environment Program patron for
Clean Air.
His greatest inspiration is Sachin
Bansal because he is the reason
this country has this bright vibrant
startup ecosystem. Bhavesh
Agarwal is his second inspiration
as he is the truest alpha..
One of the biggest beneficiaries of
India's demonetisation, Paytm has
notched up 250 million registered
users and 7 million transactions
daily.
There happened a sale of Paytm's
shares to Japan's SoftBank in May
2017 where it valued the company,
in which Sharma owns 18%, at $7
billion.Sharma has also created
Paytm Mall, an e-commerce
business and the Paytm Payments
Bank.
Last but not the least Vijay
Shekhar Sharma, the hustler, the
hard worker, who embodies the
mantra no fear, no greed, no
entitlement, is busy building a $100
Bn worth Paytm ecosystem.

09
RETAIL NEWS AT A GLANCE
Mother Diary, one of the country’s leading
dairy players with sales of around Rs 8,000
crorse, has lost some of its top executives
after its former MD & director S Nagarajan
abruptly quit in the middle of last year
Retail heavyweights Walmart and Dick's
Sporting Goods have taken steps to restrict
gun sales following last month's school
massacre in Florida.
Zomato to display fire safety certificates of
restaurants in response to Kamala Mills
tragedy
Ikea to invest rs 3 000cr in maharashtra for
stores experience zones
Amazon confirmed Tuesday that it bought
video doorbell startup Ring, in a move that
could help the internet giant's delivery arm
reach into people's homes
China's Alibaba seeks to buy food delivery
app Ele.me shareholder
Rotomac boss was among top 100 key
invites to UP summit
Ted Baker opens his first store in India in
partnership with ABFRL