Paytm Mall Announces Top Deals, Discounts, Cashback During Its Final Leg of Diwali Special Maha Shopping Festival

* Citibank to offer a 10% cashback on all credit and debit card transactions

* Smartphones from leading brands starting at Rs. 4,749, laptops, discounts on work from home 

* Consumer electronics, Apparels, Home & Kitchen, Health & Grocery, among other categories see massive cashback  

India's homegrown e-commerce O2O (Offline to Online) platform Paytm Mall (owned by Paytm Ecommerce Private Limited) which is empowering SMEs across the country with e-commerce services, today announced the final leg of its Diwali Special Maha Shopping Festival from November 13 to November 16. The company has partnered with Citibank to offer a 10% cashback up to Rs 3,000 on Citibank debit and credit card payments. The sitewide offer is applicable on a minimum order value of Rs. 1,500.

The sale offers smartphones from best-selling brands including Samsung, OPPO, and more at highly affordable prices starting Rs. 4,749. A cashback of 10% up to Rs. 5,000 would also be available to the customers. Further, leading laptop brands such as Lenovo, HP, Dell, Asus, and others will be offered at the best prices online along with a cashback up to Rs. 10,000.

Paytm Mall would also offer generous discounts on leading apparel, footwear, and accessories range. Menswear from Mufti, Van Heusen, Park Avenue among others would be available at a 50% minimum discount throughout their online collection. Womenswear across 10,000 SKUs will be offered at half the list price. A minimum 50% discount on footwear brands including Red Tape, Puma, Adidas and Lotto on over 5000 SKUs will also be offered. The latest smartwatches from top brands such as Apple and Garmin are also available at attractive prices.

A flat 15% cashback is available on consumer electronics such as wired and Bluetooth headphones, speakers, hard disks, power banks, and more across popular brands including boAT, Boult Audio, Portronics, San Disk, Seagate, etc. Paytm Mall is also offering up to 60% discount on personal grooming products as well. The company is also offering heavy discounts and cashback across Home and Kitchen products. 

Abhishek Rajan, COO, Paytm Mall said, “Customers have a lot of reasons to shop this Diwali at Paytm Mall. This year throughout the festive seasons we have managed to bring the best of deals from banks & brands. We will keep the momentum going in the coming months. Our tie-up with Citibank is helping customers add more cheer to the festive fervour by availing exclusive cashback on each transaction.”

Consumers Set to Actively Indulge in Smart Shopping and Value Spending This Festive Season

InterMiles, a leading loyalty and rewards programme, released their 2020 InterMiles Festive Consumer Sentiment Index recently, showcasing insights and identifying trends with regards to consumer spending patterns & priorities this festive season. The report is based on responses received from more than 10,000 InterMilers across India.

This report follows closely on the heels of the InterMiles Travel Consumer Sentiment Index, and decodes three core areas of the average Indian consumer’s festive spending budget, namely: major planned expenses, shopping, retail & dining preferences.

Key Insights from the InterMiles Festive Consumer Sentiment Index:

Traditional gifting set to take a backseat 

The maiden InterMiles Consumer Sentiment Index report released in September 2020, revealed that 60% Indians were raring to travel before February 2021. This corroborates the ‘travel due to pent-up demand’ trend predicted by experts, as Indians seek to break out of mundane routine and rejuvenate. The festive report reiterates this strong travel intent with 56% respondents listing travel as their top planned expense this festive season.

Home Décor has been highlighted as the second most important expense by 45% respondents, who are choosing to invest in this category. As pandemic-induced safety measures and social distancing regulations come into play this year, consumers who are confined to their homes – at least for the near future – seem to want to optimize levels of comfort and aesthetics in their own nests.

Where usually the festive season meant gatherings and personal gift exchanges with family, friends and neighbours, this year there is a noticeable dip in gifting sentiment this year. Nearly 48% respondents have listed festive gifting as third within their planned expenses consideration list make it the lowest priority for them.

Shopping priorities & platforms to be determined by price & value points | Bargain-hunting to dominate festive shopping lists

Marketers and brands are aware of the impact the pandemic has on consumer spending capacity. They are, thus, putting together deals & discounts like never before, as consumers are keen on ensuring they derive the most value out of every spend.

Consumers are seeking a bang for their buck, through direct methods – for instance, 77% respondents of the InterMiles’ Festive Consumer Sentiment Index listed great prices, discounts and offers as the most preferred factor when choosing a shopping partner, be it online or offline. 

However, consumers are also actively seeking out indirect methods to make spends earn for them, with 62% stating that earning loyalty rewards points was the second most preferred factor for them, when it came to identifying an appropriate shopping partner for their needs.

This indicates that while consumers are willing to splurge on festivities, their choices are primarily dictated by options that help them get the most value for their money, as well as ensure they earn on spends by way of virtual currencies and cashbacks, or loyalty points. Consumers are seeking to use their current spending smartly so as to be able to save, as well as fund their future spends.

Safety & hygiene predicted to dominate food ordering preferences

Online food aggregators are set to have a sparkling festive season, with nearly 81% respondents of InterMiles Festive Consumer Sentiment Index stating that they would prefer using online food delivery platforms as they dine in. 12% would rather order directly from their local restaurants, and a minor set – 6%, would rather not order in at all, given the pandemic.

When asked to rank top three factors that play a role in choosing a restaurant to order online from, safety & hygiene stood out as the topmost factor on the priority list. This trend has been observed across most service and product categories, and stands in contrast to the traditional preference drivers of price points & discounts.

Customer ratings, deals & discounts and brand reputability – in that order of priority – also rank high in the consideration set.

About the InterMiles Festive Consumer Sentiment Index:

The InterMiles Festive Consumer Sentiment Index was created to understand how consumers are planning expenditures this festive season, along with the expenses they are foreseeing. The programme which has a 10mn plus member base, is committed towards understanding the pulse of consumers across various travel & lifestyle categories. Data collected through these surveys will not only enable InterMiles as a programme to create unique and compelling value propositions for its members, it will also create meaningful business opportunities for its partners. 

The member base for the InterMiles Festive Consumer Sentiment Index comprises of multi demographics – with 60% respondents between the ages 19 to 44 – as well as diverse payment, lifestyle and travel preferences.

About InterMiles

InterMiles is a leading Travel and Lifestyle Rewards Programme. Its ubiquitous rewards and recognition currency, also called InterMiles, helps its 10mn plus InterMiles members fulfill their travel and lifestyle aspirations. The InterMiles (formerly JetPrivilege) programme empowers and rewards its members for all their travel and lifestyle needs as well as for their daily activities. This includes everything from shopping to dining and fueling up, or any spends done using the InterMiles co-branded cards, be it for flight bookings, hotel stays and a lot more. 

Members can redeem these accumulated miles for online subscriptions, merchandise, free fuel, dining, free flights across airlines as well as free hotel stays. 

Japan Foundation Adopts Digital Edition: Launches Japanese Film Festival 2020 In India

Japan Foundation New Delhi announces the Japanese Film Festival (JFF) 2020 in India to go virtual amid the pandemic. The fourth edition of the festival in India has an expansive list of 30 select Japanese films from genres of varied formats and subjects.

The festival is slated for an opening at the end of 2020, bringing critically acclaimed award-winning titles along with mainstream entertainment: films such as One Night, Lady Maiko, Production I.G Short Animation: (Pigtails), Stolen Identity, and Our 30-Minute Sessions from the Japanese showbiz for the Indian patrons. The film catalogue includes titles selected specifically to cater to varied ages and tastes across categories like animation, feature drama, romance, thriller, classic and documentary.

“We are thrilled to screen the 2020 edition of the festival on an absolutely new, exciting, and bigger scale. Keeping consumer safety utmost, the virtual platform will help us reach a wider audience base. Popularity of Japanese content has been distinctly growing in the Indian landscape which has been fueled by the recent increase in online content consumption,” said Mr. Kaoru Miyamoto, the Director-General of the Japan Foundation New Delhi.

He added, “We are bringing the best of Japanese films which have garnered critical praise along with audience love to offer an enriching experience to our Indian viewers. We are confident the festival will be successful and bigger with the online platform.”

The Japanese Film Festival 2020 Film catalogue includes marquee titles; Sumikkogurashi: Good to be in the corner, Production I.G Animation: Tokyo Marble Chocolate, Production I.G Short Animation: (Drawer Hobs), One Night, 0.5mm, Ecotherapy Getaway Holiday, Our 30-Minute Sessions, Little Nights, Little Love, Stolen Identity, Tremble All You Want, The Great Passage, RAILWAYS, Café Funiculi Funicula and more.

The Festival watch page, https://watch.jff.jpf.go.jp/ for details on the movie line-up, registration, festival schedule and dates.

About Japan Foundation

The Japan Foundation is Japan’s only institution dedicated to carrying out comprehensive international cultural exchange programs throughout the world. With the objective of deepening mutual understanding between the people of Japan and other countries / regions, our various activities and information services create opportunities for interpersonal interactions. The Japan Foundation develops programs in three different fields—arts and cultural exchange, Japanese Language education overseas, and Japanese studies and intellectual exchange.

The Japan Foundation has a global network consisting of the Tokyo headquarters, the Kyoto Office, two Japanese-language institutes, and 25 overseas offices in 24 countries (including two Asia Center liaison offices).

The Japan Foundation New Delhi was officially established in January 1994 and since then has been carrying out the Foundation’s programs thoroughly. 

Trend Micro Launches Hassle-Free, Cloud-Ready Network Security As Per Customer Demand

Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), the leader in cloud security, today announced global availability of its cloud-native network security solution, Trend Micro Cloud One – Network Security. As the latest addition to its holistic cloud security platform, it delivers simple, comprehensive protection of virtual private clouds at scale to support compliance requirements, with zero disruption to applications or traffic. 

Many organizations taking their first steps in the cloud need effective network security for business, governance and compliance reasons, yet they are poorly served by existing solutions. These may be hard to deploy, feature slow inspection speeds and are often riddled with inefficiencies: perhaps requiring multiple appliances, load balancers and instances to inspect ingress and egress traffic. 

Trend Micro Cloud One – Network Security is tailor-made for these environments, backed by Trend Micro's years of experience in cloud security for its global Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and AWS customers and expertise in network security with TippingPoint. 

According to Gartner, "Enterprises will migrate to a new model where they will consolidate multiple cloud network security services with one vendor to reduce complexity." This continues to be true as organizations move into hybrid cloud models with varied security needs. With Trend Micro Cloud One, this consolidation can be easily achieved - it provides a simplified approach to hybrid cloud security with visibility by delivering multiple security tools in a single platform for visibility across an organization's cloud infrastructure. 

"We know that many network security solutions aren't designed for the cloud: they're painful or impossible to deploy, disrupt key business processes and may leave organizations exposed to threats," said Wendy Moore, vice president of product marketing for Trend Micro. "Users can deploy our cloud-based network security in minutes for simplified protection to securely deliver business outcomes and meet compliance requirements." 

Trend Micro Cloud One – Network Security offers: 

Comprehensive cloud protection at the network layer to support compliance, including virtual patching, IPS capabilities and egress network filtering—backed by threat intelligence from Trend Micro's Zero Day initiative 

Identify threats at runtime to protect a diverse set of services (from EC2 to Lambda) and inspection of any network traffic traversing Internet Gateways, Transit Gateways or Virtual Private Gateways 

Simple, transparent deployment within minutes, without the need for additional infrastructure and with zero IT/business disruption 

Flexibility in payment options—pay only for what is used in dynamic environments, or purchase with annual license-based pricing for a more static architecture 

Holistic, centralized cloud protection from a single console to simplify management of overall cloud security posture.

Gland Pharma IPO: Issue Oversubscribed by 2.05 Times

 

Highlights

* Rs 6480-crore issue is the largest in pharma industry 

* Gland Pharma raised Rs 1943.86 crore from Anchor Investors

* Gland Pharma allocates 12,959,089 equity shares at the upper price band of Rs 1500 per equity shares to anchor investors

* 70 marquee global and domestic funds came in as anchor investors

* IPO price band fixed at Rs 1490 to Rs 1500 per equity share 

* Gland Pharma to raise Rs 6,480 crore through the IPO

* IPO include Rs 1,250 crore fresh issue and the rest being Offer for Sale 

* Gland Pharma to use Rs 1,250 crore fresh funds for capital expenditure & working capital requirements 

* Gland Pharma is an integrated manufacturer of complex injectable products.

VMSIIHE Invites Entries for Diwali Themed the “Culinary Competition”

The festival of lights, Diwali is here again. The festival conjures up images of festivities, fireworks and most importantly an array of sweet treats.   

Goa based V. M. Salgaocar Institute of International Hospitality Education (VMSIIHE) is organizing a culinary competition inviting students to participate and submit a recipe of their favourite Diwali sweet treat. 

Submissions are invited from students of class XII from Goa as well as other states across the country.  

To participate in the contest, students should submit the recipe along with a photograph of the prepared sweet as well as a short video of the preparation process.  

Submissions can be sent to  sebastian.breitinger@vmsiihe.edu.in on or before Friday, November 13, 2020. One can whatsapp (9822807814) for competition rules and evaluation schemes and other further details.  

Aditya Birla Sun Life Special Opportunities Fund Collects Rs. 409 Crore

Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC Limited, a subsidiary of Aditya Birla Capital Limited (a significant non-bank financial services’ conglomerate), and investment manager to Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund (ABSLMF) has collected Rs. 409 crore from its new fund offering Aditya Birla Sun Life Special Opportunities Fund (an open-ended equity scheme following special situations theme) during its NFO period between October 5 – 19, 2020. Attracting investors from across the country, the fund in its 2 weeks NFO period garnered over 44000 applications.

Speaking on the interest received by the fund, A. Balasubramanian, MD & CEO, Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC, said: “Despite the logistical challenges posed by the pandemic, we have attracted over 44000 applications from more than 360 locations. What is also noteworthy is the contribution coming from diversified channels across the board exhibiting our distribution strength as a fund house. Our technology strength has also come in handy to beat the logistical constraints. The interest received in this new fund is also a reflection of the growing appetite of equity investments in the country, further propelled by India’s potential of future growth. It must be noted that this is a thematic fund with a very unique and nuanced investment proposition, so it is encouraging to see this kind of participation and investor maturity. The timing of our launch was perfect, some of which we are already seeing play out in the markets and we believe there are several unique opportunities to leverage going forward”.

Events like change in management, business restructuring, mergers & acquisitions, Government policy change, regulatory changes, disruption due to a new entrant, macro-economic changes, geo-political developments, global events etc., can create special situations in a market, business, sector or company and thus special opportunities for investment. It is a wide range of possibilities and the Fund is well positioned to play these themes and special opportunities emerging in recent times like Atmanirbhar Bharat, Covid led Disruptions, massive digital adoption, Government’s disinvestment plans, changes in lifestyle and consumption patterns, technology upgrade, and others. Aditya Birla Sun Life Special Opportunities Fund looks at spotting these very opportunities.

The fund is managed by Senior Fund Manager Anil Shah who brings with him nearly three decades of experience in equity research and investments. The fund management team also includes Chanchal Khandelwal and Vinod Bhat.