Weekly Wrap-Up: Netflix Launch, Housing Financials, Quikr’s Commonfloor Acquisition, Tourism Gift Kit & More…

It’s Monday morning and time to do a quick wrap-up of all the buzzing posts of last week. If you were offline for any reason, this is a great way to catch up with all the tech buzz from last week!

2015 was a stupendous year for Indian Ecommerce. It witnessed many battles being fought to get a share of consumers’ wallet. Here is a look at how we expect 2016 to turn out for Indian Ecommerce…

Netflix has officially launched their services in India, along with 130 other countries. Co-founder and Chief Executive Reed Hastings announced it during his keynote at CES 2016, when he said, “Today you are witnessing the birth of a new global internet TV network.”

DGCI or the Drug Controller General of India has placed a ban on all online sale of drugs – a big blow to many Indian etailers and online pharmacies who were selling medicines online.

The year 2015 witnessed some of the biggest changes in the world of technology. The smartphones, especially the flagship phones reached an entire new level. We saw a lot of new technologies and features becoming mainstream which were only present in a few phones in the year 2014.

OnePlus, with first of its kind initiative in the industry, has revealed the price of its genuine spare parts to help customers get the correct rates anywhere they want to get their phone fixed.

Grofers, the upcoming, hot hyperlocal delivery platform which has expanded to 27 cities in the last 12 months have suddenly turned cold. In a major decision, they decided to exit 9 Indian cities.

The recipe for a successful startup has some really important and paramount ingredients that can either make or break the path to success for any startup.

As expected, India has crossed a major milestone of 1 Billion Mobile subscriber base. In the month of October 2015, India added 6.83 million new mobile subscribers taking the total tally to 1003.49 million!

Housing has reported a total revenue of INR 12.7 crores in FY 14-15, which is nearly six times of its revenue in the previous fiscal. Out of this, INR 5.5 crores is revenue from operations. Against this, they have reported a net loss of whopping INR 279 crores in FY 14-15 which is also about six times of its loss in the previous fiscal.

Just like last year, we are back with the Digital Marketing predictions for 2016 and some of the upcoming trends in this space. Entrepreneurs shold especially read it to forge ahead in the game!

Reliance Industries, which is India’s most profitable company, may soon venture into online taxi booking niche, which is currently dominated by Uber and Ola in India. As per various sources, Reliance has contacted several tax owners in this regard, and their services can be launched by March, 2016.

Last week, Nasscom issued a press statement, wherein they have said that ‘differential pricing’ proposed by telecom companies and their partners should be allowed for ‘public interest’ services.

If there is one company that gives competition to Qualcomm in terms of chipsets, it has to be MediaTek. At ongoing CES 2016, MediaTek has unveiled three new chipsets for Ultra-HD 4K Blu-ray players, fitness watches and to bridge Internet of Things(IoT) at home.

Uber, the global leader in Taxi aggregation & booking space today announced launch of uberEXCHANGE, a program that will help Indian Startups get off the ground. The program aims at not only providing mentorship, but also introduce selected startups to investors and successful entrepreneurs from across the world.

Delhivery reported a revenue of INR 228 crores in FY 14-15 against a loss of INR 71 crores in FY 14-15. This is a revenue growth of more than 250% from INR 62 crore, with a loss of INR 19 crores, in the previous financial year.

According to a report by 9Apps, an average Indian user installs no more than 32 apps (lower than the world average) and only 26% users have Hindi language apps. Also, most Indian mobile users continue to download apps via 2G network and prefer offline playback versus online streaming

In a major setback for portals such as Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal, Department of Commerce and Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has said that marketplace model is ‘not recognized’ under India’s FDI policies.

Quikr and CommonFloor confirmed to the world that acquisition has happened through some cheeky exchanges of tweets between each other. Yes, they later put up an official announcement as well!

LeTV has entered the Indian market with a bang! They announced 3 new futuristic products, Le 3D Helmet, LeMe Bluetooth Headphones and Super Cycle. The products are expected to be priced very aggressively, considering LeTV’s history of pricing its products.

Facebook announced last week that it has hit 800M active users milestone, which means the actual number might be higher. This is very encouraging for Facebook since they have left no stone unturned to make Messenger as close to an open web messaging service

Ironical it may seem, but Indian Government is still in doubt over the term ‘Startup’. Before ‘Startup India Standup India’ program is launched on January 16th, Government wants to clearly define what exactly is a startup, and wants to understand which companies can be categorized under this definition.

Any new Foreigner visiting India on e-tourist visa will be welcomed to India with a “Gift Kit”. Among other things this Gift Kit will contain a SIM card to help the tourist with his communication needs.

Indian business tycoon and investor Azim Premji has once again proved that he is the biggest philanthropist in India as of now. For the third time in row, he has been declared as the ‘most generous Indian’ by Hurun India Philanthropy List.’’

Lenovo is now planning to replace the name ‘Motorola’ with ‘Moto by Lenovo’. This re-branding means that we won’t be able to see the iconic brand name ‘Motorola’ on the smartphones henceforth.

Two biggest taxi unions in Mumbai have come together, and launched an app called 9211, which will offer instant cab service at Government approved rates. Just like Ola or Uber, this app will show the nearest cabs available from a customer, and enable them to book it right away.

And, while you are at it, do not forget to check out our updated Indian Startup Funding & Investment Chart of 2015-16