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China’s Ctrip.com Acquires Online Travel Company Skyscanner in $1.74 billion Deal

24Nov By reutersNo Comments

ACQUISITION

China’s Ctrip.com Acquires Online Travel Company Skyscanner in $1.74 billion Deal

Ctrip.com International Ltd , China's biggest online travel company, said on Wednesday it agreed to buy travel search website Skyscanner Holdings Ltd in a deal valuing the Scotland-based company at about 1.4 billion pounds (USD 1.74 billion). Ctrip's shares were up 9.2 percent at USD 44.75 in extended trading. Skyscanner, a result of CEO and co-founder Gareth Williams' frustration with finding cheap flights, enables users to compare prices from different travel sites when searching for flights, hotels, and rental cars. The website currently serves 60 million monthly active users and is available in over 30 languages. Skyscanner was reported to be exploring a sale or an initial public offering. The company was valued at USD 1.6 billion in a funding round in January, when it raised ...

Bosch India Launched 18 Week Startup Accelerator Programme Called DNA

22Nov By NitishNo Comments

News

Bosch India Launched 18 Week Startup Accelerator Programme Called DNA

Technology and engineering solutions company Bosch India today launched its first accelerator programme for start-ups called DNA - 'discover, nurture and align', to gain a foothold in the country's booming start-up market. This is first time Bosch would be working with external start-ups to mentor and get them investment-ready, the company said in a statement here. The 18 week programme comprises an intense development, mentoring and piloting platform for start-ups. This platform offers start-ups the opportunity of gaining access to Bosch's working environment. "Bosch India is looking to partner and collaborate with start-ups that work on disruptive solutions in the areas of mobility solutions, smart manufacturing, smart cities, meditech, agritech and energy," said Manohar Esarapu, ...

NBCUniversal Invests $200 Million in BuzzFeed

22Nov By reutersNo Comments

FUNDING

NBCUniversal Invests $200 Million in BuzzFeed

Online media company BuzzFeed, best known for its list-based articles and quizzes, said Comcast Corp's NBCUniversal had invested an additional USD 200 million in the company. NBCUniversal last year invested roughly the same amount in BuzzFeed. NBCUniversal parent Comcast has pumped heavily into digital-native companies such as BuzzFeed and Vox Media, partly in an effort to better service existing advertisers. BuzzFeed, whose content generates 7 billion views each month, will collaborate with NBCUniversal on production and social distribution for NBCUniversal's Content Studio, the companies said on Monday. In August, BuzzFeed split itself into news and entertainment divisions amid media companies' struggle for balance between covering news and politics, and lighter fare like social...

21Nov By reutersNo Comments

News

Facebook’s Zuckerberg Discloses Steps to Fight Fake News

Facebook Inc, facing withering criticism for failing to stem a flood of phony news articles in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election, is taking a series of steps to weed out hoaxes and other types of false information, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post Friday evening. Facebook has long insisted that it is a technology company and not a publisher, and rejects the idea that it should be held responsible for the content that its users circulate on the platform. Just after the election, Zuckerberg said the notion that fake or misleading news on Facebook had helped swing the election to Donald Trump was a "crazy idea." Zuckerberg then said last Saturday that more than 99 percent of what people see on Facebook is authentic, calling "only a very small amount" fa...

Flipkart eyes groceries; renewed push in furniture

20Nov By reutersNo Comments

News

Flipkart eyes groceries; renewed push in furniture

Led by Bansal's, India's top e-commerce player Flipkart plans to move into the groceries space and make a renewed push in the online furniture business, as it expands its product portfolio and looks to outmaneuver global giant Amazon.com in a burgeoning Indian market. Flipkart Chief Executive Binny Bansal said the home-grown e-commerce player plans to begin experimenting with grocery sales next year and scale up operations over a three year period. "There's definitely room to build a profitable grocery business, but it's hard. That doesn't mean it's not possible, but it's hard," Bansal told Reuters in an interview on Sunday. Amazon has already began to pilot grocery sales in select Indian cities. More and more people in India, a country of over 1.2 billion people, are logging on to t...

Facebook Sets $6 Billion Buyback; Accounting Chief to Leave

19Nov By reutersNo Comments

News

Facebook Sets $6 Billion Buyback; Accounting Chief to Leave

Social media giant Facebook on Friday set a $6 billion buyback programme for its Class A shares, beginning in the first quarter of 2017. Facebook's shares were up 1.1% at $118.24 in after-hours trading. The company had a market value of about $337 billion at close. The company also said Chief Accounting Officer Jas Athwal had resigned, effective Feb. 17. Athwal has spent nearly nine years at the company and was formerly the director of revenue at Yahoo. The company said it planned to launch a search for a replacement.

Google Launches Photo Scanning App Google PhotoScan

16Nov By AnkitaNo Comments

News

Google Launches Photo Scanning App Google PhotoScan

Tech giant Google has rolled out a new scanning app Google PhotoScan that allows users to scan and Digitise physical photographs. The free standalone app detects edges, straightens the image, rotates it to the correct orientation and removes glare, Google said in a statement. Scanned photos can be saved in one tap to Google Photos to be organised, searchable, shared and safely backed up at high quality, it added. "We all have those old albums and boxes of photos that are some of our most treasured memories. Such as photos of grandma when she was young, or of your childhood pet, and even that hairstyle you wish you could forget. But we just keep thinking about scanning the photos to preserve these moments, but never really get around to it. Well, here is an easy option," it said. ...

Alibaba Rakes Up Record $17.6 Billion on Singles Day Sales

12Nov By AnkitaNo Comments

CHINA, News

Alibaba Rakes Up Record $17.6 Billion on Singles Day Sales

Alibaba Group, the e-commerce giant behind the 24-hour Singles' Day shopping blitz, has raked up a record USD 17.6 billion in the Singles Day online sales, creating a new record in global retail sales for any single day. Consumers spent more than 120 billion yuan (USD 17.6 billion) shopping online on leading e-commerce platform Alibaba in their annual buying spree yesterday, sources with Alibaba Group said today. Online transactions totaled 120.748 billion yuan in the 24 hours that ended as the clocks struck 12PM yesterday, a record amount in global retail for any single day, data provided by Alibaba said. The shopping spree hit a climactic high just nine minutes after midnight on Friday morning, with an average 120,000 transactions handled per second on Alipay, Alibaba's mobile pa...

Paytm Acquired Delhi Based O2O Startup Shopsity

12Nov By PriyankaNo Comments

ACQUISITION

Paytm Acquired Delhi Based O2O Startup Shopsity

India's largest mobile payments and commerce platform Paytm has acquired a Delhi-based startup Shopsity, a O2O solutions to small retail stores. Earlier This move is in line with Paytm’s vision to create strong seller-focused services for its offline merchants. Shopsity is focused on small unorganized retailers, providing them with tools to attract and retain customers. Co-founders Danish Ahmed and Gaurav Arya have joined Paytm’s management and are actively working to strengthen seller services for the 800,000 strong offline sellers on the Paytm ecosystem. ”Shopsity has done a great job at providing innovative solutions to small offline retailers. By integrating their technology with our advanced seller services, we will be able to offer additional solutions to our fast-growing famil...

E-commerce Giant Amazon’s Cash on Delivery Orders Back on Track

11Nov By NitishNo Comments

News

E-commerce Giant Amazon’s Cash on Delivery Orders Back on Track

E-commerce giant Amazon today said it has resumed cash on delivery (CoD) service for customers, two days after it had halted the option following the government's move to demonetise Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Apart from cash, Amazon India will allow customers to pay using credit and debit cards at the time of delivery of the order. "As of November 11, we are re-introducing CoD to enable options to pay at the time of delivery. This accommodates customers who face challenges of paying online, but are still able to use electronic instruments at delivery," an Amazon India spokesperson said. The spokesperson added that the delivery agents have been trained to help customers who opt for card payments at the time of order delivery or valid currency notes, including the newly introduced Rs...

Shoppers Stop Eyes 2 Million Online Users, 15% Online Sales By 2020

10Nov By AdityaNo Comments

News

Shoppers Stop Eyes 2 Million Online Users, 15% Online Sales By 2020

Fashion retailer Shoppers Stop is looking at doubling its mobile application downloads to 2 million and 15 per cent sales through its digital touch points by 2020, a senior executive said. "We are following a four-pronged strategy to grow our business by enhancing the customer experience, offering a wider assortment, leveraging technology and focusing on innovation to meet our 2020 target of 15 per cent sales through digital touch points," Shoppers Stop Customer Care Associate and MD Govind Shrikhande told reporters here. "Our mobile application, launched six months back, presently has over 9 lakh downloads and we are looking to double that by 2020," he added. The retail company, which is celebrating its 25th year, presently offers 60 per cent of its products online and plans t...

5Nov By reutersNo Comments

FUNDING

Online Retailer Bonobos Reportedly in Talks to Raise $100 Million Funding

E-commerce menswear company Bonobos is speaking to investors about raising $100 million in a new round of funding that would value the company roughly at half a billion dollars, according to people familiar with the matter. Bonobos is using the new funds to expand its retail footprint, highlighting the crossover that e-commerce companies are making into traditional brick and mortar retail as they push for growth, the sources said on Friday. Bonobos, which is profitable, generates around $150 million in sales and is working with Citigroup to assist with the fundraising, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Citi and Bonobos declined to comment. New York-based Bonobos was founded in 2007 by Stanford business school graduates who wanted ...