New year, new hopes 💪
Vaccs here baby, Reliance hurt, and FB’s killing it.
Hi 👋, Tanvi here.
Filter Coffee hits your inbox every morning with notable tech and business news scoops to jump start your day.
Sign up below for free. 👇
Let’s go ahead and get started:
Oh what a year. We ended up taking a lazy break the last 2 days, counting our chickens, working on messaging, clearing our heads. Hope you did the same too. And we so dearly hope 2021 is your year, the one when you shine the brightest ever, achieve your best dream, and for the sake of all of us, the India growth story moves an inch closer to reality. ✨
Also, we wanted to take a moment to say thank you — we came out with a tiny project from the lockdowns, to quickly gather over 5,600 readers snagging 55,000+ monthly views. This year we’re hoping to entice some Angels, hire some folks, double down on this game. Thank you for keeping us alive and going. :)
Onwards...
Kicking off the new spirit 🥳
1️⃣ The vaccine gods’ blessing—after trials that took forever and never ending regulatory hoops, India finally managed to authorize on an emergency basis the usage of 2 vaccine candidates. One of the shots comes from Astra-Zeneca and Oxford University, locally made by Serum Institute and known to be effective around 70.42%. Pretty decent rates, but as R&D continues aggressively and the numbers are expected to catch up. The other comes from local entity Bharath Biotech, called Covaxin, which is expected to be around ~60% effective.
Regional news outlets are reporting promising progress in local delivery infrastructure to make the doses available at primary health centers nationwide for emergency use cases.
2️⃣ Holiday gifts, more trade deficits—for the month of December, India’s imports grew by nearly 7.6% to $42.6 billion, probably largely driven by domestic consumption of imported merchandise during the festive season. The exports however continued to remain low, with the total trade deficit ending the month at $15.7 billion.
3️⃣ BTC starts the New Year on a roll too—Bitcoin blasted past $30,000 over the weekend to now settle over $34,000. Twitter is going mad. The champions as well as the skeptics both seemed pretty convinced that this is it, but neither faction is able to convince the unassuming why they should care.
...and yeah lastly, everyone has just decided to write off 2020. FYI.
SEC thinks Ambani stinks 👀
The Securities and Exchange Board of India, India’s top cop for market policing, slapped Mukesh Ambani and Reliance with a $5.5 million fine for violating some trading restrictions 13 years ago—sending a kind reminder to the markets as well as corporate India to not try and mess with one of the few remaining uptight regulators in the nation. Clearly not a good start to the new year for RIL.
In simple terms, the accusations claim that Reliance and its officials purchased stock in the company’s petroleum business (back then it was a separate entity called Reliance Petroleum) via brokerages that weren’t listed with the SEBI, then took short positions in the company’s futures, and then went on to quietly offload the stock they held, forcing prices down, and reaping gains.
The regulators say that the act blatantly violates stipulated rules and constitutes manipulative trading. Reliance’s defense claims they were acting in the favor of Reliance shareholders aka the public, but that failed to evoke any sympathy with the SEBI.
For what it's worth, the fine amount is barely a rounding error for Reliance, but… it does the job of sending a message, that there are scrutinizers capable of inflicting harm, especially at a time when it was looking as though Ambani’s growth streak was going to be left mostly unchecked.
While we’re on the subject,
Then again this week the wealth standings saw some reshuffling, and Ambani’s stint as Asia’s richest man was cut short. A little known Chinese billionaire trumped him to clinch the top spot. The man’s name is Zhong Shanshan, and his claim to fame? Bottled water.
The world rung in 2021 on Facebook’s servers 📈
Folks busy out drinking, no time for a formal Zoom call. Internationals locked away in other countries, calling friends and family on the go. Working in a city, calling family back home — all of that informal, impromptu connecting at the dot hour made Facebook’s communication services the busiest they have ever been on a single day on new year’s eve.
Some highlights:
1.4 billion+ calls on Whatsapp (voice + video) on New Year’s eve — the most ever on one day
Calling on Whatsapp up 50%
55 million live broadcasts across FB and Insta
100% bump in group calling via Messenger
Amidst all the noise Zoom is making, countered by Google’s Meet and Microsoft’s Teams, particularly in the enterprise world, everyone seems to be sleeping on the consumer video-services opportunity FB is quietly dominating. Monetization is hard, but once you have engagement, the rest follows.
Some more trouble for Future Group 🏛️
The company’s sale to Reliance is facing fresh resistance, this time from a lender called Clix Capital who is claiming that Future had promised it equity in exchange for a loan, and that the company’s unconditional sale to Reliance breaks those rules. They’ve approached the Delhi High Court now to seek help.
Basically, Future had taken a tiny loan from Clix to build a mall. If payments are not made on time for the loan, Future had promised some equity stake in exchange. Now without settling Clix, Future has quite literally sold itself to Reliance. And Clix is claiming it shouldn’t have to deal with Ambani for the $$. Seems straightforward.
Similar accusations Amazon had made against Future earlier too, which has been an ugly mess involving the 3 companies. Those matters are pending in the Delhi High Court, and this new case is sure to give Amazon’s claim some bolstering. What a mess, Future!
Tweet of the day 🐦
Quick thread to kick off the first Monday of 2021 on a productive-high if that’s your plan
What else are we snackin’ 🍿
⛵Some defense infra spending- The Indian army has signed a contract with Goa Shipyard Limited for 12 Fast Patrol Boats. These indigenously made boats will be used for surveillance and patrolling of large water bodies.
Hit that 💚 if you liked today’s issue.
You can forward this email or share FC on social media by clicking the button below. Thanks and Ciao! 😀