&w=3840&q=100)
Apple vendors cross 20% domestic value addition threshold in India
New Delhi
Listen to This Article
Apple India's iPhone contract manufacturers, such as Tata Electronics, Wistron Infocomm Manufacturing, Pegatron Technology India, and Foxconn Hon Hai India, have crossed the 20 per cent domestic value addition (DVA) threshold across variants, according to official government documents seen by Business Standard.
This assumes significance as the Cupertino-headquartered major exported iPhones worth ₹1.5 trillion (free on board value) from India in FY25, recording a 76 per cent rise from the previous year. Apple CEO Tim Cook had at a recent earnings call said that a majority of the iPhones sold in the United States in the June quarter would be
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
Muted IT hiring to focus on skill-driven freshers
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills ETtech Despite soft peddling on hiring mid and senior level employees, software services firms are set to hire cautiously with a focus on skill-driven freshers that is estimated to grow 3-5% compared to the first half (H1) of the year, recruitment experts said.A large part of the new hiring is likely to be focused around junior and entry level positions driven by lesser employee expenses and a steeper learning curve.'Hiring may remain muted in H2 unless there is a clear uptick in client spending. Lateral hiring will be need-based, while fresh hiring could be calibrated to future deal visibility. Overall, H2 may see 3–5% hiring growth compared to H1, driven largely by demand for AI, cloud, and platform roles,' said Neeti Sharma, chief executive officer at mass staffing firm Teamlease said the hiring is concentrated at junior and niche mid-levels with in-demand the ongoing trade and macro uncertainties have slowed down business demand with cumulative workforce additions by top five IT firms - Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys , HCLTech, Wipro and Tech Mahindra – shrinking to below 5,000 in the April-June overall net additions have been on the decline for the past four years from over 53,000 employees added in FY21, stronger deal momentum amid hopes of clarity on tariff policy in the second half of the year, and the need for specialised skills is making outsourcing firms optimistic about recruitment of the full fiscal year that ends in March 2026, TCS and Wipro have continued to maintain fresher hiring targets of up to 40,000 and 12,000, respectively. Neck-to-neck rivals Cognizant – Indian-origin US-headquartered – and homegrown Infosys aim to hire 15,000-20,000 freshers each. Cognizant has over 70% of its employee base in comes on the back of strong deal bookings expected to convert into execution sooner than later. For now, experts are unanimous that most IT services companies are focused on optimising costs, improving utilisation, and recalibrating talent for future-ready companies are not expected to follow suit expansively with TCS' July decision to lay off 2% of its employees – around 12,000 there are visible fissures of the slowing or deferred business impact.'Over the next couple of quarters, we expect a measured approach rather than a widespread wave of retrenchments. Hiring is concentrated at the entry level, a strategic move to manage costs and invest in future talent. Companies are equipping freshers with new-age skills through robust training programs,' said Aditya Narayan Mishra, MD & CEO of mass recruitment firm CIEL Sharma added that restructuring is 'more visible at mid to senior levels, especially in roles with lower billability, overlap due to M&A, or outdated tech stacks.'Mishra anticipates a slight uptick in hiring activity in H2, particularly in high-demand skill areas like AI/ML, cybersecurity, cloud engineering, and digital consulting.'With many AI pilots underway, companies will begin identifying the real ROI (return on investment) and start hiring talent that can scale viable projects. However, the growth will be selective and skills-led, not volume-driven,' Mishra said.A Randstad Digital 'India Talent Insights Report 2025' report by showed that AI and ML roles alone saw a 39% demand surge in 2024 despite overall IT hiring declining by 7% due to macroeconomic pressures and global points to a sustained shift that will continue over the next 12–18 months.'Tier-2 cities are gaining momentum, with locations like Chandigarh and Coimbatore leading growth in junior and mid-level IT hiring—driven largely by GCC expansion and distributed workforce models. We expect selective hiring in niche areas, a focus on outcome-based talent, and growing demand for AI-led transformation skills,' the report said.
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
Data centres in non-metro cities a non-starter as AI warrants scale over speed
New Delhi/Mumbai: Edge data centres, which were expected three years ago to boost India's cloud services market with proliferation in smaller cities, have remained a pipe dream as applications requiring high connection speeds have failed to take off as predicted. These smaller data centres, designated to be less than 10 megawatt (MW) in capacity as against a hyperscaler facility's 50MW-plus size, serve local data demand within districts. They provide high connectivity speeds, or low latency in technical parlance, by reducing the physical distance to the end user. They were planned to come up in tier 2 cities such as Guwahati, Patna, Lucknow, Jaipur, Nagpur, Pune and others to serve applications like smart cars, augmented reality headsets, automated traffic management and more. However, these applications have not scaled as predicted by analysts, resulting in edge data centres falling out of favour after some initial growth spurts. After a brief burst of enthusiasm, operators are pouring money into expanding large facilities in established hubs like Mumbai and Chennai, where enterprise and big-tech demand is deep and revenue visibility stronger. Icra Ltd estimates India's edge capacity will rise from 70MW in 2024 to about 200MW by end-2027—just 8% of the projected 2.5GW total. Anupama Reddy, vice president and co-group head of corporate ratings at Icra, noted the barriers for edge: security risks from remote deployments, rapid tech shifts and obsolescence risk, talent scarcity, and interoperability challenges with core data centres. She added that rentals are structurally higher for edge, reflecting higher capex per unit of data and a retail-heavy customer mix. Real estate consultant JLL, in a report in June, concurred with Icra's analysis. Hyperscalers up speed Meanwhile, hyperscale—or large–data centres—have been cutting down on latency, eating into the key selling point for edge data centres, said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief executive of technology advisory firm Greyhound Research. 'The industry miscalculated how quickly core network improvements and submarine cable projects would help hyperscale data centres close much of the latency gap," he said. As of today, only a fifth of chief information officers at enterprises report active investment in edge data centres beyond primary metros, as per Greyhound. 'After years of hype, deployments have lagged due to the absence of widespread latency-critical workloads, and the rapid maturity of backbone networks and data distribution architectures," Gogia said. Reddy and Gogia's projections are backed by the data centre firms, too. Operators such as Singapore-headquartered Princeton Data Group, Hiranandani-backed Yotta, Bharti Airtel's Nxtra and US-based Equinix, among others, are all looking to build large data centres—instead of edge facilities. 'Edge data centres are not a part of our strategy, and we expect hyperscalers to be the largest demand driver," said Vipin Shirsat, managing director for India at Princeton Data Group. Use cases of edge data centres include content distribution and low-latency applications like gaming or autonomous cars, he said. While these use cases are growing, they don't really require significant capacity, he explained. 'The uptake of these applications is not what many had anticipated three years ago," Shirsat said. 'Applications that require lower latency are rare, and tier 2 locations face hurdles such as higher per-MW build costs for edge facilities, limited redundant networks, and a smaller pool of skilled technical talent," said Manoj Paul, managing director of Equinix India, adding that the company will continue to concentrate its investments in Mumbai and Chennai. Edge lacks demand Sunil Gupta, chief executive of Yotta, echoed Shirsat and Paul—stating that while the company 'already has the land in various cities for edge expansion, the client demand isn't at a scale that warrants us to invest in edge data centres right away." 'When demand builds, we'll definitely ramp up based on client needs," he added. Bharti Airtel-owned Nxtra, meanwhile, is different from the rest. Ashish Arora, chief executive of Nxtra, said that the company currently has 150 edge data centres in 65 locations, with plans to add 10 more in the next two years. 'For edge facilities, most of the demand comes from within the Bharti group, but in terms of our overall business, clients from outside of the group now contribute to the majority of our revenue," he said. Even then, Arora said that edge data centres are not a mainstay of the company's data centre growth plan. 'Edge data centres won't be the industry's primary growth driver going forward—tech-driven services are still seeing investments made towards innovation, and consumer-end demand is limited. Hence, for data centres, most of the demand will be for traditional data centres in established hubs," he added. Arora further said that AI applications have not created demand in smaller districts, for now. 'You may want lower latencies in consumer-end AI applications, and in inferencing from running AI models. But, training AI models—the main data centre use case—needs large capacities and not fast deliveries, which is why such use cases are very low and limited for now," he added. Companies that set up large data centres have announced expansion plans such as Princeton Data which, in September last year, said it would establish 230MW in net India data centre capacity, with the first phase targeted to be brought live by the end of next year. Equinix, too, announced a large-scale expansion plan last year. Yotta's Greater Noida facility, announced in October 2022, can expand up to 250MW by next year. However, there are no specific expansion plans for edge data centres. As a result, industry stakeholders believe there are little to no business benefits for edge data centres for now. As Greyhound's Gogia said, 'A national edge rollout plan was shelved after content distribution upgrades reduced data latency significantly. While edge data centres delivered initial gains, their incremental advantage could not justify the additional capital and operational burden."
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
Flipkart employee, an MBA student, held for theft of mobile phones in Delhi: Police
A 27-year-old employee of Flipkart was arrested for allegedly stealing high-value mobile phones from the e-commerce company, police said on Sunday. The accused was identified as Manish Kumar, they said. A case was registered on August 9 at Sagarpur police station following a complaint from Pankaj, a representative of Instakart Services Pvt Ltd, a Flipkart subsidiary, about the theft of expensive phones from the Dasrathpuri office. A case under Sections 305 (theft) and 331(4) (trespassing) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita was lodged and an investigation was initiated, police said. Police activated local informers while simultaneously conducting digital surveillance to track movements linked to the suspected theft. Investigators said that during inquiries, Manish emerged as a prime suspect. On August 13, acting on a tip-off, a police team apprehended him from Sagarpur area. During sustained questioning, he allegedly confessed to having stolen mobile phones while working as a team leader with Instakart. He also admitted to having disabled the CCTV cameras at the premises before committing the theft. According to police, Manish is an MBA student who has worked at the company for around 10 months. Preliminary interrogation revealed that he had encountered financial distress but had to still pay the EMIs of a loan he had taken. He was allegedly not able to handle the crisis with his 'insufficient' salary. This, police said, drove him to commit the theft. Two iPhones and a OnePlus mobile phone were recovered from the possession of the accused, police said.
