Latest news with #Shenoy
Time of India
27-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Ctrl+AI+Delete: Is the old PC dead?
Walk into any electronics retail store in a shopping mall and you will see experience zones showcasing the latest and greatest in AI PCs, running demo videos and AI apps. There will be a crowd huddled around them trying out new applications—summarising documents, writing code, generating images and making music. In-store promoters will be evangelising the benefits of a neural processing unit fitted in these laptops. Sales of AI PCs are gaining traction in India, albeit slowly. The main deterrents to mass adoption—confused consumers who are not very clear about the benefits and a steep price-tag, industry executives and market trackers told ET. Out of a total 9.9 million PCs shipped in India in 2024, only 1.2 million were AI notebooks, making up roughly 12% of total PC sales, according to IDC. Ipsita Dasgupta, managing director, HP India , told ET that AI PCs are just being introduced in the Indian market, so it's still early to quantify their share in overall shipments. However, momentum is building quickly, with strong interest across consumer and commercial segments.'Globally, 15-20% of all PCs sold this year are expected to be AI PCs and this is projected to rise to over 50% within the next two to three years,' she said. Price is not expected to be a prohibitive factor for adoption of AI PCs in India. 'When comparing an AI PC to a non-AI PC with similar specifications, the price difference is negligible. In most cases, the difference is about Rs 15,000,' Dasgupta said. Some, however, feel that the response has been below expectations. 'In the last one year, the industry has realised that the adoption of AI hardware has not grown at the pace they assumed. The slow adoption is not only in India, but globally too,' said Sudhir Goel, chief business officer, Acer India . As the hype around generative AI reaches fever pitch, there is strong interest among customers in India, however. 'We're seeing stronger interest across customer cohorts—students, creators, gamers, mid-market and enterprise—where AI use cases such as AI tutors, personal assistants, video and audio editing, intelligent threat detection, real-time translation and Copilot+ workflows have immediate impact,' said Ashish Sikka, director and category head, Lenovo India . However, steep pricing of the products has kept overall penetration of AI PCs low, industry executives said. 'People don't know why they want to pay more to buy an AI PC,' said Bharath Shenoy, principal analyst, IDC India. Shenoy said AI PCs currently command a higher price compared to non-AI PCs which is a barrier, especially for bulk enterprise purchases and price-sensitive consumers. 'The entry-level price for AI PCs is currently significantly above the typical price range where the majority of Indian consumers are comfortable spending for a laptop. People were spending around Rs 30,000–35,000 for a laptop. Now it has gone up to Rs 45,000–50,000. But AI PCs start around Rs 75,000–80,000,' Shenoy said, adding that when consumers do spend that amount, they often opt for established premium alternatives. Some in the PC industry have accepted that pricing is a barrier to adoption, and has been actively working towards lowering it, admitting that the additional hardware inside AI PCs will always keep them at a premium over non-AI PCs. 'This is the beginning of the AI PC era in India. Right now, most of the AI PC devices launched are in the premium segment, and over a period of time, we will see more and more AI PCs being launched in the mainstream segment. However, AI PCs will continue to be at a premium to normal PCs, as they have significant hardware enhancements, which provide customers with an undeniable value proposition for productivity, creativity and security,' Lenovo's Sikka said. Industry executives said the second half of the year will see prices moderating. The older generation PCs will put on discounts to clear inventories, replaced by a new breed of affordable AI PCs , that will bring them closer to the average selling price of a PC in India. Goel says while prices have already started going down, a major drop is expected from June onwards. Acer specifically plans to bring AI hardware very close to what is the current mainstream pricing by May end when the back-to-school season starts, a period which typically sees PC sales go up in India. Qualcomm , a new entrant in the PC space known primarily for its chipsets for high-end smartphones, said its new Snapdragon X platform has already enabled devices at price points starting around $600 (approximately Rs 51,000), and the company now expects a big pull from consumers. Beyond just pricing, there is also a general lack of awareness of the benefits of using an AI PC, industry executives said. As awareness picks up and pricing comes down, AI PCs are expected to dominate PC sales in the years to come
The Hindu
26-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
India shipped 3.3 million PCs in Q1 of calendar year 2025: IDC
India's traditional PC market, which comprises desktops, notebooks, and workstations, grew 8.1% year-on-year in the January-February-March quarter of calendar year 2025, with 3.3 million units shipped, reported International Data Corporation (IDC), a U.S.-based market intelligence and data tracker of IT, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets globally. Strong notebook demand and rising AI-powered PC adoption have driven the PC growth during the quarter, IDC said. The quarter saw notebooks category growing at 13.8% YoY, with premium notebook shipments (over $1,000 per unit) growing at 8% YoY. Workstations grew by 30.4% YoY, while desktops declined by 2.4% YoY. AI notebooks witnessed an 185.1% YoY growth due to a lower base, the firm further said. According to IDC, during the quarter, the consumer segment grew by 8.9% YoY driven by Republic Day sales and heavy shipment push in March across channels. E-tail channel continued its upward trajectory growing at 21.9% YoY. The commercial segment grew 7.5% YoY with increased demand for commercial notebooks, primarily from enterprises. The commercial desktop category, however, declined 2.5% due to 27.4% YoY decline in the government segment. 'The consumer PC market had one more upbeat quarter driven by e-tail channels and focused offline expansion,' said Bharath Shenoy, research manager, IDC India & South Asia. 'PC vendors are ensuring greater accessibility for customers across India by strengthening their offline presence with new brand stores, increasing large format retail (LFR) presence, and offering attractive discounts and cashback deals online.'' While strong shipments indicated positive market momentum, the resulting increase in channel inventory posed a challenge in the near near future, Mr. Shenoy cautioned. HP led the market with 29.1% share in the first quarter of CY 2025 topping the charts in both the consumer and commercial segments. Lenovo stood second with 18.9% share and Dell Technologies took the third position with 15.6% share. Dell continued to hold the second position in the commercial segment with 22% share, however, it focused on correcting its channel inventory in the consumer segment which led to lower shipments thereby dropping to sixth position behind Apple, as per IDC analysis. Acer Group, which held the fourth position with 15.4% market share, witnessed 95.5% YoY growth in the consumer segment. However it saw a 21.1% decline in the commercial segment. Asus at fifth position commanded 6% share. Commenting on the outlook, Navkendar Singh, associate vice president, Devices Research, IDC India, South Asia & ANZ said, 'While enterprise orders continue to grow and drive commercial segment purchases, the Indian IT/ITES sector has remained relatively subdued so far, reflecting a cautious approach and a focus on optimising existing IT investments.'' With AI-powered capabilities becoming integral to business operations, organisations have started adopting AI PCs to enhance productivity, security, and automation, which was expected to grow further in the coming quarters, Mr. Singh added.
Mint
26-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
100% invested in domestic equities: Capitalmind's Deepak Shenoy reveals portfolio secrets, invests in THESE index funds
Deepak Shenoy, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Capitalmind, revealed his portfolio secrets in an interaction with Mint, wherein the ace investor said he doesn't have any international exposure and his 100% invested in the Indian stock market. Shenoy exited his international exposure earlier in January 2025 — held through Nasdaq ETFs — as he found the US markets expensive, saying that he is "100% invested in the domestic equities." The portfolio rejig by Shenoy came at an opportune time, as the Nasdaq index has underperformed the Indian stock market in 2025 so far, shedding 1% as against a 4% rise in the benchmark equity indices — Sensex and Nifty. Furthermore, in a conversation with Jash Kriplani of Mint, Shenoy highlighted that currently his investments are parked in three Indian index funds.
Mint
26-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Is EPF advisory the next fintech goldmine?
Pune/New Delhi: Mumbai-based Abhishek Shenoy (38) started his first job in 2008 but quit after a couple of years to study further. Later, he resumed his career and went on to work with multiple companies over the following years. Each time Shenoy switched jobs, he raised a transfer request to merge his previous employee provident fund (EPF) with the new one. To his surprise, the transfer never took place. 'I spent two-three years pursuing this but to no avail. I used to get several errors while initiating the transfers and was clueless about the way forward. Lack of information in the public domain made the process tedious," he said. At this point Shenoy happened to find out about FinRight, a provident fund (PF) consulting startup founded by Mumbai-based Amey Kanekar, on LinkedIn. 'I immediately reached out to them. It took them only three-four months to get it all sorted against a fee of ₹10,000-20,000," he said. Ramya Lakshmanan has a similar story to tell. The Bengaluru-based employee had lost all hopes of accessing the money accumulated in her PF despite having worked with seven companies in a span of 15 years. Not a single account had been merged with the other. 'I had different PF accounts. One was managed by a trust; another was as a contractual employee; a couple of accounts had no link to Universal Account Number (UAN), and some had different UANs. It was a total mess," she said. UAN is a 12-digit number provided by the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) to have a single identifier for the multiple member identifications. Ramya's husband happened to find out about KustodianLife, a PF consulting startup, at a tech event. 'We verified the company's credentials and reached out to them. The mess was cleaned up in just three-four months. I only shared my documents and a few contacts of my previous employers. I made a test withdrawal to see if everything was sorted, and it sure was," she said. 'The fee turned out to be just 5% of the total PF balance finally accessible to me," she said. Golden opportunity The EPFO has around 300 million members in total (of which 74 million are active contributors). Most members are there by force—EPF enrollment is mandatory for organizations with more than 20 employees and the majority get caught up in a system too complex for them to understand. This complexity has created a golden opportunity for fintechs trying to find an entry point into India's hyper-competitive financial services space. A few startups have smelt the opportunity in the thousands of crores languishing with the EPFO, hard-earned money that millions of Indians are desperately trying to access. That opportunity is certainly huge. There are about 58.7 million claims per year (partial or full) and about 16.3 million are rejected. Even if 20% of rejections are solved by these startups at an average charge of ₹10,000 per case handled, this will amount to a market size of ₹3,300 crore per annum. 'The number of claims filed with EPFO has been growing at about 15% for the last two years. Considering growth of new contributing members at 10%, and rejection rate at 20%, we estimate the PF consulting market to grow in the range of 12-15%," said Amey Kanekar, founder, FinRight. The Mumbai-based startup charges a flat fee of ₹2,099 in addition to GST for its services. However the charges can be customized per the work involved. Bengaluru-based Kustodian Life focuses on complex cases that need legwork. It charges an average of ₹25,000 for such cases and ₹6,000 for simpler ones. What if people don't get their money after paying the fee? 'We are very careful while accepting cases. We don't take cases where chances of recovery are very low," explained Ketan Das, strategy and operations head at Finright. 'We take half the fee up front and the other half when the money comes," said Kunal Kabra of Kustodian Life. 'If it doesn't come, we refund the advance," he added. Finright has an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that checks your EPF account history for issues that can lead to rejection of withdrawal applications. The company says around 3,000 people have availed of its full service and another 7,000 have used the platform at a more basic level. Altogether, it has helped people recover about ₹500 crore from the EPFO. Kustodian Life's Kabra, who only counts 'full service' cases, says he has serviced about 350 clients and ₹90- ₹100 crore so far. 'The largest individual amount we have released is ₹1.5 crore," he added. 'A lot of venture capital funds are cautious about investing in firms like us because they worry about the runway—what if the government removes the roadblocks in EPFO withdrawal? I usually say to them: 'where is the incentive in the system? Opening a bank account has become easy in India, but try closing one'," Kabra noted with a chuckle. For these fintechs, reclaiming PF money is only the starting point—they plan to use it as a launchpad to build broader businesses in personal finance and capture a much bigger wallet share. Finright, for instance, aims to become a full-service financial advisor and wealth manager using EPF as a bridgehead. Kustodian Life aims to cross-sell its wills and succession planning services. The EPFO labyrinth The EPFO is a masterpiece of Indian bureaucratic complexity. It is based on a law passed in 1952, designed for an industrial workforce of the 1950s and 1960s, that hasn't been updated. Employees have to contribute 12% of their 'basic pay' and this is matched by an employer contribution of 12%. This total amount, in turn, is invested in the EPF and Employees Pension Scheme (EPS), with the EPF fetching an interest rate of around 8% each year. The interest is tax-free. However, a host of rules complicates the EPF system. To begin with, organizations can 'limit' the basic pay to ₹15,000 per month and hence limit EPF deductions to ₹1,800 (12% of the basic) per month. Alternatively, employers can contribute 12% of the 'actual' basic salary. In either case, 'basic pay (plus dearness allowance)' is a small fraction of the employee's total pay (called cost-to-company, or CTC). The resultant EPF accumulation is too small to provide for retirement after a 30-year-career but large enough to take out for things like home-buying, marriage expenses, health issues or unemployment. In the 1950s, employees largely had 'jobs for life' if they were in the organized sector. Moving around was not a frequent occurrence and hence the strain of transferring EPF between organizations was bearable. The EPFO also allowed employers to manage their own EPF funds by setting up trusts called 'exempt PF trusts'. The idea was to let companies earn a bit more from smart investments and still match what the EPFO was giving their employees. However, as the economy modernized and employees moved jobs more frequently, transferring EPF between organizations became a major headache. And when some of these were 'exempted PF trusts', the issues became acute. The result was a high rate of withdrawal rejections. Why? Simply because the employee had not successfully moved older PF 'pots' to the latest employer. According to Finright's Das, failed transfers are the most common reason for rejection of EPF withdrawals. This is usually because employees do not know that they have to transfer old pots or do not know how to do it. The EPF website, with its multiple portals (separate 'member portal' and 'passbook portal') is not helping ease the situation. Questions sent to the EPFO remain unanswered. The EPS twist Another equally bureaucratic complication is the EPS. The EPS occupies the largest chunk of the employer contribution of 12%, that is 8.33%, but earns no interest. Instead, you get a pension after the age of 58 based on a formula linked to the number of years of work, capped at ₹7,500, an amount that is woefully low for all but the poorest workers in India. The EPS is open to two types of employees. First, those who joined before 2014 regardless of their basic salary. Second, those who joined after 2014 but with a starting (basic) salary of less than ₹15,000. Other employees (who joined after 2014 with a basic salary higher than ₹15,000) are not eligible to join. However, large numbers of employees who move jobs fail to tell their employers whether they contributed to EPS in their old job or not—because they simply do not know. This leads to a current employer either contributing to EPS when it shouldn't be doing so or failing to contribute when it should be doing so. 'This messes up the EPF service history and leads to withdrawal rejection," explained Finright's Das. 'It's really a toss of the coin—whether you get it right on the form or not," he added. That is exactly what happened to Bengaluru-based Bhavani BR. She was not supposed to be contributing to EPS but all her employers deducted it. When she made a partial withdrawal request, it was rejected for no fault of hers. Bhavani was told to rectify the EPS mess. 'I approached my first employer. They had to fill up some form 3-A to correct it but they filled it wrongly and I was back to square one," she recalled. Eventually Kustodian helped her out for a fee of ₹42,000. Attempting reform The EPFO has been trying to reform its system, but it has a long way to go. It recently enacted three reforms: allowing withdrawal of EPF money from ATMs; ending the need for employer approval to seed bank accounts; and nixing the practice of requiring a cancelled cheque with a withdrawal request. Of these, the first is skimpy on details but the second two carry procedural weight. 'Around 40% of the 74 million active members don't have their bank accounts seeded in their EPF accounts. The EPFO earlier required employer approval to seed the bank account apart from bank approval. Now, only bank approval will be needed," explained Das. But even the mere process of getting the bank account seeded may be difficult for many, which these fintechs may help solve. The EPFO 2.01 project, also known as the Centralized IT Enabled System (CITES) 2.01, is another initiative that is underway to streamline operations. 'The project aims to provide a more efficient, seamless, and user-friendly experience for members. It is being implemented in phases. Thus, in the near future, it is expected that many changes in the services will come with more simplification," said Sanjay Kesari, regional provident fund commissioner-I (retired), EPFO. But as digitization continues so will execution challenges. 'Large-scale digital transitions often come with gaps in user understanding, inconsistent system responses, and difficulty in resolving legacy issues. These hurdles inevitably create opportunities for specialized service providers to step in and offer much-needed support," said Kunal Arora, founder, SKVC Consulting, a firm that advises on labour law compliance. EPFO 2.0 will take its time. What is needed immediately is a well-designed and fast website. 'The Income Tax Department and the Central Passport Organization outsourced their website creation to IT services firms, but EPFO has been ultra conservative in its approach and members are suffering," said Anurag Jain, co-founder/partner at ByTheBookLLP, a tax consulting firm also active in PF advisory to corporates. However technical improvements alone will not address the knowledge gap—many employees simply do not understand the rules. And that's why the EPFO will continue to serve as a land of milk and honey for these startups.
Mint
25-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
How Capitalmind's Deepak Shenoy covered shortfall in his son's education goal
Planning for your kids' education goals can be a complex process if you are not prepared for it. Deepak Shenoy, founder and chief executive officer of Capitalmind Financial Services, had to make some adjustments to his financial plan when his son showed more interest in overseas education. 'Earlier, I was building up the corpus for domestic education, but once it was clear that overseas education was more suitable for him, I made the necessary adjustments," Shenoy shared with Mint in an interaction for 'Guru Portfolio', a series where leaders from the financial services industry share how they manage their money. Adjusting education portfolio Shenoy had started making investments for his son's education goal in 2017. As mentioned, the expected goal was domestic education at the beginning. He started investing for the goal from his PMS in 2019. He assumed weighted average returns of 12.2% from a 60:40 equity:debt portfolio, which was part of his PMS firm's goal-planning tool. His son was aged 12 in 2019. The equity allocation was a mix of Capitalmind's active and passive PMS strategies. The debt portion was a mix of short-duration and long-duration funds. In mid-2021, it was decided that overseas education would be more suitable, which meant adjusting the education portfolio. His son still had four years left before starting college. 'I had to get aggressive, increase my investments and increase the equity allocation to 75%," Shenoy explained. For the overseas education plan, he made the following assumptions: US education inflation of 2.5% and currency depreciation of 3.5% (rupee versus dollar). While the education inflation ended up being higher at 3.5%, Shenoy made up for it with additional investments. Over the next four years, a combination of higher investments, higher equity exposure, and reasonable returns from the education-linked portfolio helped Shenoy come close to his targeted education corpus. In today's terms, US education costs around ₹2.4 read: Inside Edelweiss MF CEO Radhika Gupta's plan to build over ₹10-crore—and how she's investing to get there His own investments Excluding the education-linked investments, Shenoy's own asset allocation is 75% equities and 25% arbitrage funds. His PMS also had a separate arbitrage strategy that was more tax-efficient after debt investments lost their indexation benefit, and hence, he made all his new fixed-income investments in arbitrage from FY23. He says he exited his international exposure earlier this year (in January)—held through Nasdaq ETFs (exchange-traded funds)—and is 100% invested in domestic equities. 'That exit worked out well as US stock markets appeared expensive and since January, they have underperformed," he pointed out. His portfolio, though, was marginally positive over the past year. He says the returns were 3.5%. His own investments were largely in his firm's PMS products. Over the last 5 years, his portfolio has delivered 19% annualized returns. He says he is on track for his retirement goals. 'I have already reached 50-60% of my retirement corpus. So, it is on track. But if Capitalmind does well, then that would itself be a very big kicker to my goals as I have a meaningful stake in the business," he read: What makes Mirae Asset's Swarup Mohanty paranoid about his retirement corpus Mutual funds As Shenoy's Capitalmind Financial Services has received the mutual fund licence, as part of the regulations, Shenoy will move his own investments to his new fund house's mutual fund schemes. Regulations don't allow mutual fund executives to own stocks directly, like in a PMS account. For now, he has shifted the funds from his PMS to index funds. These are in Nifty 50 Index fund (37% of equity exposure), Nifty Next 50 Index fund (33%) and Nifty 150 Index Fund (30%). The latter represents the mid-cap segment; 101st to 150th stock in terms of market cap. Pocket money lessons Shenoy says he used to invest his kids' pocket money in liquid funds, but his sons made him switch their pocket money investments to equities. 'I used to regularly share with my sons the progress of their investments. They compared their education-linked investment—which was largely in equity—with their pocket money investment and told me to switch to equity as they wanted similar returns on their pocket money. So, I started investing their pocket money in equity index funds," he says. In spouse's name Shenoy has put all the investments in his wife's name. 'If something were to happen to me, it would be easier for my wife to access the investments if they were in her own name. If something were to happen to her, I am savvy enough to move things around and access the funds," he explains. Life, health cover Shenoy has basic health covers of ₹10 lakh ( ₹5 lakh from family floater and ₹5 lakh from employer cover), and a super top-up of up to ₹50 lakh. The super top-up will kick in after the first ₹10 lakh is paid for. 'My thinking was that ₹10 lakh in medical costs, even I should be able to afford if needed, but I should have an additional buffer if higher costs are required in a medical emergency," he says. Shenoy has a term cover of ₹1.5 crore, which will lapse when he turns 60. 'I don't expect to depend on my income after crossing 60. Hence, I don't wish to cover my income. The term cover plus my savings should be adequate for my family in case something were to happen to me. Additionally, I also have a stake in the business," he additionally holds 10 months of living expenses for contingencies, which is held in arbitrage funds. Staying healthy Shenoy says for the last several years, he has not prioritized his sleep. 'I think I have only been sleeping for four to five hours. And, I would try to somewhat make up for it over the weekend or a holiday, but this was not a healthy practice. Now, I have moved my sleep to six hours. I plan to bump it up every month. That is a major health goal for me," Shenoy says. He has also tweaked his diet by reducing his carb intake. He used to play squash, but after hurting his knee, Shenoy is doing body-weight exercises at home. He adds that he is trying to prioritize family time as well. 'Just like the tagline of our new fund house—win at life—I think it is important not to just focus on making money all the time, but also to improve the quality of life. Hence, we try to now spend more time as a family—try to go for movies, travel, outings, etc. Now that my older son will be going to the US for studies, we will be travelling to the US and Europe," Shenoy says.
