Nik's Diary
Indian markets
opened marginally in the red tracking SGX Nifty, which is currently trading
lower by ~0.2%. Most of the Asian markets are trading in the positive territory
with gains in the range of 0.1% to 0.8%. US stocks moved higher on Thursday
buoyed by upbeat employment data. The strength on Wall Street came following
the release of a report from the Labor Department which showed an unexpected
drop in initial jobless claims for the week ended March 9. The report showed
that initial jobless claims fell to 332,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the
previous week's revised figure of 342,000 and much below the estimates of
350,000. European markets were trading higher on Thursday, ahead of a two-day
meeting of European policy makers that begins in Brussels in which EU leaders
are expected to endorse plans for structural assessments of national budgets
and discuss a bailout for Cyprus. Meanwhile Indian markets reversed the
declines in the past three trading sessions, with the key benchmark indices
Sensex and Nifty posting gains of ~1%. The Indian markets rose on hopes of rate
cut after WPI inflation data showed the core inflation surprisingly fell to
3.8% in February, its lowest level since March 2010.
WPI inflation at 6.8% for February 2013
Ahead of the RBI’s monetary
policy review on March 19th, the whole sale price index inflation stood at
6.84% in February 2013, as against 7.56% in the corresponding period in the
previous year. Inflation was declining for four months in a row till January.
In January 2013, WPI inflation was at 6.62%. The cumulative inflation in
the current financial year in the April-February period is 5.71% compared to
the figure of 6.56% in the corresponding period of the previous year. The
Inflation in manufactured products (Weight-age: 64.97%) was at 0.1% and that of
fuel and power (Weight -age: 14.91%) was at 3%. The inflation in 'Food
Articles' which has a weight-age of 14.3% in the WPI basket stood at 0.2%, and
the index for 'Non-Food Articles' group was at 1.6%. The index for 'Minerals' group
registered a reading of 0.9%. The inflation in onions was as high as
154.33%. The price rise in rice was at 18.84 and that of wheat was at 21.63.
The price of vegetables rose by 12.11% and that of potatoes rose by 45.99%.
While the inflation in egg, meat and fish stood at 12.85%, the price of milk
rose up 4.57% and that of fruits went up by 7.02%. Source: Business Standard
GSM
operators lose ~2mn subscribers in February
The GSM operators lost 1.97 million subscribers in February,
after a modest user addition during the previous month, taking its total base
to 655.59 million. This is a 0.30 per cent fall from previous month, according
to data compiled by GSM operators’ body Cellular Operators’ Association of
India (COAI). The GSM operators added 0.4 million users in January 2013,
arresting losses of previous two months. “The fall is due to shutting down of
services by certain operators, while the subscriber verification initiatives
have almost stabilised. Some of the subscribers were picked up others, but not
all,” COAI Director-General Rajan S. Mathews said. Uninor, which closed down
operations in Mumbai on February 16, lost 8.35 million subscribers during the
month. The company, which had a total of 31.77 million users, closed down
operations following the Supreme Court order that operators who did not win
spectrum in the previous auction should close down services. Aircel lost
6,98,506 users during the month, dragging its customer base to 60.87 million.
Videocon and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd were the other operators to record
subscriber base erosion, with the companies losing 196,935 and 2,03,878,
respectively. Bharti Airtel continued to the country’s leading operator by
subscribers, with the New Delhi-based company garnering a total of 186.62 million
users. It added 2.43 million subscribers, increasing its market share to 28.47
per cent, during the reporting month. Vodafone India added 2.19 million users
taking its total user base to 149.89 million, while Idea Cellular added 2.86
million subscribers increasing its subscriber base to 119.26 million. Source: Business Line
Infosys bags order from BMW
In a
deal that will help it gain more share in the European
market, Infosys BSE 0.63 %announced that it has won a five-year deal
from BMW Group for application basis infrastructure management
services. Infosys will open a new delivery centre in Munich as part of its
global service delivery team and cover services, such as maintenance and
operations of the web infrastructure, content management, SAP
Basis operations, IT for IT (the company's internal IT system) and the business
intelligence systems of BMW Group. The second-largest IT services firm in
the country garners around 24% of the revenues from Europe, where it is looking
for more growth. Last September, it acquired Swiss consulting
firm,Lodestone, for over $350 million (Rs 1,930 crore). In the third quarter of
fiscal 2013, the revenues from Euro went up 16.6% sequentially and 14.4% on
constant currency terms. This was a reflection of the business gain through the
acquisition. "Our new delivery centre in Munich will help us achieve
this objective for BMW and allow us to expand our local presence in a key
growth market," said Ashok Vemuri, global head of manufacturing and
engineering services at Infosys, Overall Europe contributes a
little under 30% of the $76 billion in exports that the Indian IT-BPO industry
is expected to clock in the year to March 2013, with most of it coming from the
UK and Nordic region. Source: Economic Times
Punj Lloyd bags `314 cr offshore contract
Infrastructure
major Punj Lloyd today said it has bagged a contract worth Rs 314 crore ($57.75
million) from Al-Khafji Joint Operations for an offshore project in Al-Khafji,
Saudi Arabia. “The project, worth Rs 314 crore, is scheduled for commissioning
in September 2014,” it said in a statement. Al-Khafji Joint Operations is a
joint operation of two companies, Aramco Gulf Operations Company Ltd (AGOC) of
Saudi Arabia and Kuwaiti Gulf Oil Company (KGOC), for oil and gas exploration
development and production in the offshore area of the partitioned neutral zone
between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. “Middle East has a huge potential in the
offshore space and this project marks our entry into this market. With our
extensive expertise of offshore pipelines and platforms, self owned
technologically advanced barges, we are committed to delivering this project to
out client’s satisfaction,” Punj Lloyd’s Director P K Gupta said. The scope of
work for the project entails detail design, engineering, procurement, testing,
transportation and construction/ installation of a new 20” OD crude
transmission line, 40 km submarine rigid pipeline, mechanical completion among
others, the company said. “The purpose of this project is to install a new
crude transmission pipeline as a replacement for the existing transmission
line,” it added. With this contract, the order backlog for the Punj Lloyd group
on a consolidated basis has gone up to Rs 24,004 crore, “reflecting the total
value of unexecuted orders as on December 31, 2012 and orders received after
that day”, the company further said. Punj Lloyd is a leading engineering,
procurement and construction company, offering services in energy and
infrastructure sectors along with engineering and manufacturing capabilities in
defence sector. Source: Business Line
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