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In today's newsletter: 

• Advertising powers Flipkart’s FY24 revenue surge
• A Diwali Gift can turn into a costly nightmare
• Indian IT BFSI demand: Expectations vs reality

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Hold onto your hats, people! Walmart-owned Flipkart just dropped some impressive numbers, even as it faces rising competition in India’s fiercely contested e-commerce sector.

Flipkart’s marketplace unit (Flipkart Internet) saw a significant revenue jump in FY24, and its losses are shrinking faster than a deflating balloon.

The marketplace unit’s revenue jumped 21% year-on-year to a staggering Rs 17,907.3 crore in FY24.

• More importantly, losses reduced by 41% to Rs 2,358 crore, marking a significant step toward improved financial health as the company chases profitability.

A booming advertising business. Brands are flocking to Flipkart to reach millions of shoppers, and it's paying off big time.

• Flipkart’s advertising business surged by nearly 50% to Rs 4,972 crore in FY24, from Rs 3,325 crore in FY23.

During the financial year ended March 2024, Flipkart Internet’s total expenses went up 8.4% to Rs 20,627 crore in FY24 as against 19,024 crore. 

• The firm’s employee benefit expenses went up by 15.51 crore to Rs 5,177 crore. 

Flipkart currently leads the e-commerce space in India with a market share of 48%, according to Bernstein. 

• However, consumer expectations are now changing with the increased adoption of quick commerce in the country, where players like Zomato’s Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart among others are giving e-commerce giants a run for their money.

Flipkart also recently forayed into the arena with Flipkart Minutes. Will the company be able to retain its leadership position in the years to come? Time will tell!

Go deeper

This Diwali, as you embrace the joy of giving gifts, beware—digital scammers are ready to pounce on your generosity.

As the festive season encourages gift-giving, it also invites scammers who exploit tactics like “digital arrests” and gift card fraud. 

In yet another case of digital scam, a Bengaluru-based techie lost Rs 4.35 lakh after receiving a WhatsApp message from someone posing as his boss, requesting Apple gift vouchers for clients.

• The newly-hired techie quickly purchased the vouchers and shared the codes, only to later discover that the request was a ruse.

Gift cards have become a prime target for scammers due to their convenience and lack of traceability.

Despite improved bank systems for detecting suspicious peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, it's hard to intervene when a legitimate user buys and shares codes with scammers.

• Retailers often can’t trace gift card transactions, making it tough for consumers to prove they didn’t use the cards themselves.

Scammers convert these funds into untraceable cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum, complicating recovery efforts even further.

Hence, awareness remains the key to avoid falling prey to digital scammers. 

Here are some stats for thought:

• Indians lost Rs 120 crore to “digital arrest” scams in just the first quarter of 2024, according to the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C).

• 7.4 lakh complaints were filed between January-April, compared to 15.56 lakh complaints received throughout all of 2023.

Image credit: Meta AI

Have you seen those 'Expectations vs. Reality' reels? It seems that the Indian IT sector is facing a similar conundrum.

While major Indian IT firms say there is resurgence of demand in North America's BFSI sector in Q2FY25, the actual figures tell a different story.

For example, India’s largest information technology company, TCS, reported a 2.1% year-on-year decline in revenue from North America.

• While the BFSI segment was flat in Q2 for the IT firm, the revenue share of this segment decreased to below 30.8% from 32.6% in the overall revenue.

TCS CEO K. Krithivasan stated that this sector and region have experienced overall growth.

Infosys, India's second-largest IT services company, also saw its share of North America revenue decline by 2.7% while HCLTech’s revenue from the region also decreased. 

• While all the top-tier companies spoke of a return of growth in the BFSI sector, their contributions to revenue in their key market—the U.S.—showed a downward trajectory.

Distancing themselves from sticky issues, as always, experts said the positive comments are a result of client conversations and macro indicators.

• It can take a couple of quarters for the talks to translate into actual spending in these key markets, an analyst told us.

• Cybersecurity, identity, and access management, and data privacy over the coming quarters will drive these spendings, said another analyst.

Q2 revenue data from the North American region and its BFSI sector highlights the ongoing wait for optimistic projections to convert into actual growth.

Dig deeper

• Abu Dhabi-based tech giant G42 aims to integrate AI solutions into various areas of film production in India.

• OpenAI’s Whisper transcription tool has been reported to have hallucination issues, according to software engineers, developers, and academic researchers. They warn that these issues can be especially problematic in high-risk domains, such as medical transcription.

• Google is developing an AI product, Jarvis, that takes over a person’s web browser to complete tasks like booking a flight, and purchasing a product, in December.

One of India's most popular streaming series is heading to the big screen!

Mirzapur, the hit Prime Video crime thriller, is set to make its theatrical debut in 2026.

Produced by Excel Entertainment, the movie will bring back fan-favorites Pankaj Tripathi (Kaleen Bhaiya), Ali Fazal (Guddu Pandit), and Divyenndu (Munna Tripathi) along with Abhishek Banerjee (Compounder). 

• Amazon recently released the third season of Mirzapur with another season in the works. 

Also, making its comeback to the theatres after 30 years is the Hindi cult classic movie 'Karan Arjun' 

• The Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan starrer is set to re-release in theatres on November 22

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