Housing sales up 6% during Jul-Sept in nine big cities: PropEquity

Housing sales rose by 6 per cent during July-September in nine major cities at 51,142 units on demand recovery post demonetisation, new real estate law and GST impact on the real estate market, according to PropEquity data.

Nine cities tracked by real estate data, research and analytics firm PropEquity include Gurgaon, Noida, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Thane and Chennai.

Launches of new homes grew by 12 per cent to 32,870 units during the third quarter of 2018 calendar year.

"In the last one year, prices have corrected and the realty market has started to somewhat revive. With festive season coming up, developers will dole out discounts, finance schemes and freebies to push housing demand further," said Samir Jasuja, founder and managing director of PropEquity.

Automakers offer discounts, schemes to woo buyers during festive season

.

Passenger vehicle makers are pulling all stops to woo buyers with attractive schemes and offers this festive season that began with Navratra on Wednesday after the dry spell of Shraadh. The period of festivals till Diwali is critical for auto companies as they account for almost a third of their annual sales. The sales push this year comes in a market that has seen demand sputter amid rising petrol prices, high-interest rates and floods in some states. Not leaving anything to chance, automakers are offering schemes even on best-selling models that are relatively new in its life-cycle.

In Maruti Suzuki’s case, Mumbai buyers can avail benefit up to Rs 25,000, including exchange bonus and accessories on the company’s best-seller Baleno. Similarly, Hyundai Motor India too is offering benefits up to Rs 40, 000 on the new Verna.

Consumers of the new Honda Amaze can avail extended warranty worth Rs 12,000 for the fourth and fifth year. Even Mahindra XUV500 customers can benefit up to Rs 36,000. Even Toyota Yaris is also offering to grant profit worth Rs 20,000 as an exchange bonus.

Flipkart founder Sachin Bansal may buy 10% in Ola for $100 mn: report

Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal is in talks with Ola to invest about $100 million for a 10% stake in the cab hailing major.

Bansal will be buying new shares in the company, according to sources close to the development. The purchase may also include a small secondary component where he buys a part of shares held by some investors.

This will be the largest personal investment for Bansal, who has several early-stage bets under his hood.

In the past, he had invested in learning platform Unacademy, news app Inshorts and electric scooter-maker Ather Energy, to name a few companies. The potential deal suggests Bansal wants to remain clued into the country's thriving internet entrepreneurial ecosystem, after he moved out of Flipkart, the e-commerce behemoth he co-founded in 200

Taxiing into new zones: Soon, Uber to deliver grocery at your doorstep

Global ridesharing major Uber might soon move into the burgeoning grocery delivery space. After launching its food delivery service in India Uber Eats almost three years back, sources close to the firm said Uber might launch a few pilots for grocery delivery in India as early as next year.

The development comes soon after its global Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi during an event in Los Angeles said the company moving towards grocery delivery after food is the next logical step in the evolution of the Eats vertical. The grocery vertical would be added to the Uber Eats app.

“With Eats, we’re getting into the business of moving food around. I think this product of delivering great quality food to you at home in 30 minutes or less is magical and is going to move into grocery in a way that’s fundamental and a lot more people are going to be eating at home… you can absolutely see grocery as being an adjacency,” he said at the international event.

Eli Lilly plans expansion, looks to grow presence in Indian market

Eli Lilly will bring its pipeline of oncology and diabetes drugs to India as it looks to grow its presence in the market. The US-headquartered drug maker which has been relying on partnerships to sell its drugs in India, on Wednesday launched its patented rheumatoid arthritis drug Olumiant that they plan to market on their own.

In the last three years, it has launched eight products while in the last 22 years of its presence in the country it launched 10 products (molecules and molecule variants).

The US-headquartered company has a pipeline of seven molecules that are currently in phase III clinical development and around ten are in phase II clinical testing. Eli plans to bring some of its molecules from the global pipeline to India, especially in the oncology and diabetes space.

Currently, diabetes is the largest therapy segment for Eli in India. Data from AIOCD AWACS showed that Eli had clocked a 51.4 per cent growth in sales value over the last one year (MAT September 2018). This data, however, does not include the revenue from partnerships. Luca Visini, managing director of Eli Lilly and Company, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh said that, “We want to launch drugs in any country as soon as we can.”

Foodpanda takes 2,000 seats in GoWork's co-working centre at Gurugram

Co-working operator GoWork Thursday said online food delivering platform Foodpanda has taken 2,000 seats in its centre at Gurugram.

GoWork has two co-working centres in Gurugram spread over 8 lakh square feet with a capacity of 12,000 seats.

The company was founded in June last year by Sanjeev Mahajan (Chairman), Sudeep Singh (Chief Evangelist and co-founder) and Nimit Mahajan (co-founder).

GoWork said in a statement that it has "acquired leading food-tech startup Foodpanda as a client."

Foodpanda has initially taken up 2,000 seats in GoWork's centre at Udyog Vihar in Gurugram under the 'built to suit' enterprise format, with expansion plans of up to 4,000 seats, it added.

Data privacy rules in Asia major stumbling blocks for fintech boom: Report

Data privacy rules in Asia are limiting the spread of financial technology, an industry body said on Thursday, calling on regulators to set out broad principles rather than precise rules.

Companies around the world want to make better use of the large pools of data they have to both cut costs and offer additional services. But governments and regulators in Asia and elsewhere are tightening rules on how that data is used.

"Governments in Asia say that they support fintech, and they want fintech firms to enter their market, but data privacy rules are a major stumbling block," Paul Hadzewycz, senior associate at the Asian Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (Asifma), told Reuters.