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MOTLEY COLLECTION OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC NEWS |
 Laptops zoom ahead, Q2 sales grow 113 per cent
The strong story of notebooks in the Indian PC market continues. The segment has shipped over 219,000 notebooks in a single quarter—April-June quarter of 2006—according to IDC India in its Quarterly PC Market Tracker.
“While the quarter witnessed sluggishness in the desktop PC market with a decline of 5%, notebook shipments continued to expand. This arose as notebooks are increasingly being used by the mobile workforce to be productive and respond in a competitive environment,” said Piyush Pushkal, senior market analyst, IDC India. The huge growth is attributed to aggressive channel and end-user promotions from vendors and buoyant buying sentiment in the small and medium business segments.
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 Foreign banks edge out local peers in 2005-06
The 26 foreign banks operating in the country have outperformed domestic banks by posting an impressive 54.76 per cent net profit growth in the last financial year (2005-06). While private sector banks showed a decent net profit growth of 42.25 per cent last year, their counterparts in the public sector fared badly with a modest 6.91 per cent rise in net profit.
Standard Chartered, the largest foreign bank in the country, reported a 50.41 per cent growth in profits to Rs 905.9 crore in 2005-06—the highest among its peers. Citibank retained its second position, logging a 17.58 per cent rise in profit to Rs 705.5 crore. The total assets of foreign banks in India swelled by Rs 48,297 crore to Rs 2,00,940 crore last year. Their income grew by Rs 3,081 crore or 34 per cent to Rs 12,186
crore.
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 Global buyouts may get a leg up
Global acquisitions and investments by Indian corporates such as the Tatas, Birlas and Infosys could soon get a leg up, with the government mulling a comprehensive outward investment policy. The policy will include a financial mechanism to provide companies access to low-cost funds for overseas mergers and acquisitions. Government officials said the issue was discussed at a recent meeting of the Prime Minister’s Trade and Economic Relations Committee, and the Prime Minister’s Office was now seeking inputs from the ministries concerned. A comprehensive outward investment policy was also being examined in the context of China’s growing importance as a global investor. Outward FDI from China increased from a meagre $400 million in 1980 to $38 billion by the end of 2004. China is also the second largest investor in Africa after the US.
Pharmaceuticals, information technology, automobiles, engineering goods, and project services were some of the thrust areas that would be covered under the policy, the officials said.
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October 2006
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