Categories
India Journalism

International Students Avoid Red States

2017 07 10books

That’s the gist of a story I wrote with my colleague Doug Belkin in Chicago. It begins:

International students accepted to U.S. schools are planning to enroll at a similar rate as last year in most areas except the southern part of the country, especially Texas, according to data from 165 U.S. colleges and universities.

I spoke with one student here in New Delhi, as you’ll read, who said he really wanted to apply to Rice University in Texas. But his parents would’t let him — due to the state’s liberal gun laws.

You can also hear me on our What’s News podcast discussing the piece.

Categories
India Journalism Tech

Our Facebook Live Video On Apple and India

Last week my colleague Eric Bellman and I conducted a live Facebook chat on Apple’s big gamble on India.

The video is embedded above and on The WSJ Facebook page here.

Eric and I discuss India’s promise as the second biggest smartphone market after China (hundreds of millions of people are getting online for the first time on low-cost smartphones), what Apple’s been doing to make strides here (assembling phones locally for the first time, working to open its own official stores, trying to boost the iOS ecosystem, etc.) and the challenges it faces (the biggest: price).

Enjoy.

And for more, see a couple of our recent stories:

Categories
India Journalism Tech

Photos: iPhones, Assembled-in-India, are Here

2017 06 26iphonetweet

I tweeted this on Friday and wanted to share it here as well: as we reported last month, the first-ever assembled-in-India iPhones are a reality.

Here’s a closer look at a couple of images of SE models I snapped at two shops recently here in New Delhi.

2017 06 26iphone

2017 06 26iphone2

For more on the wider context, see our story Thursday on Apple’s push in India. The headline: “Apple Scraps Like an Underdog in Second Biggest Mobile Market.”

Categories
India Journalism Tech

India’s WhatsApp Rival Launches Mobile Payments


That’s what I wrote about in this story today, which begins:

India’s biggest local messaging app, Hike Ltd., has beaten Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp into the country’s booming mobile-payments business.

Hike on Tuesday launched free bank-to-bank and mobile-wallet payments for its roughly 100 million users, meaning people can quickly send money to one another via the company’s smartphone app.

“We are the first to bring payments to a messaging app in India,” Hike’s founder and chief executive, Kavin Bharti Mittal, said at an event in New Delhi.

For more on Hike, see my story from last year, when they raised $175 milion from China’s Tencent and others.

Categories
Journalism

New Story: Mobile Wallet Paytm Hits Pay Dirt Amid India’s Cash Crackdown

A new story out Wed., which I wrote with my colleague Corinne Abrams, begins:

MUMBAI—India’s second-most-valuable startup, the mobile-payments app Paytm, has a new target after proving itself more popular than credit cards.

“We’re competing with cash,” said Madhur Deora, Paytm’s chief financial officer. “In India, we’re not competing with cards.”

The company’s boast isn’t a stretch, given India’s crackdown on cash over the past six months has left citizens and merchants searching for cashless payment alternatives. Paytm has seized the opportunity and become the market leader through timely partnerships, simplifying the app’s process and dispatching an army of up to 10,000 trainers to reach out to the tiny shops that dominate the Indian economy.

The results have been impressive. Five million merchants in India accept payments using Paytm, five times the number that accept credit cards, Mr. Deora said. In addition, Paytm has 225 million mobile wallet customers, more than Snapchat’s 166 million daily active users world-wide and four times as many as rival mobile-payment competitors MobiKwik and FreeCharge, which each have 55 million users.

Click though to to read the rest.

Categories
Journalism

New Story: As Allegations Swirl Around SoftBank, It Calls Them ‘Sabotage’

A new story out Thurs., which I wrote with my WSJ colleagues Bradley Hope and Alex Frangos, begins:

A contentious back-and-forth between SoftBank Group Corp. 9984 0.90% and attorneys who say they represent anonymous, disgruntled shareholders is riling the Japanese telecommunications titan.

The difficulties for SoftBank come as it is poised to begin investing $100 billion in technology startups around the world, and they have drawn concern from a Saudi Arabian investment vehicle that is set to commit $45 billion to the SoftBank technology fund.

The allegations from the attorneys have lingered over the past year about the conduct of top SoftBank executives, especially in India. The company announced last week it had taken a loss on $1.4 billion on investments, largely in Indian startups. In March, a complaint was submitted to an Indian financial regulator purporting to identify financial malfeasance in those deals, including that current or former SoftBank executives received kickbacks connected with the investments.

Click through to read the rest.

Categories
Journalism Tech

Our Scoop Yesterday: Apple Manufacturer Assembles First iPhones in India

2017 05 18 apple india

The exclusive, which I wrote with my WSJ colleagues, begins:

NEW DELHI—An Apple Inc. manufacturer has completed a trial run of the first-ever iPhones assembled in India, in an important step in the U.S. tech giant’s push into the fast-growing South Asian market.

The manufacturing of Apple’s cheapest iPhone model, the SE, was handled earlier this month by Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron Corp., which has an assembling unit in the southern state of Karnataka, a state official with direct knowledge of the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

Apple said in a statement that it has begun initial production of a small number of iPhone SE handsets in Bangalore and will begin shipping the Indian-made devices to domestic customers this month. The first devices could hit stores as early as this week or next, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A Wistron spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on “market rumors or speculation.”

With sales cooling in China—long an engine for Apple’s growth—the Cupertino, Calif., company has been looking for new ways to build its brand in India. Apple has sought concessions on the taxes it pays to import some components, government officials say.

The story was followed by may other outlets.

Categories
Journalism Tech

Scoop Mon. With Colleagues: Indonesia’s Go-Jek in Talks to Raise $1 Billion

Jakarta 1948146 640

The exclusive, with my WSJ colleagues P.R. Venkat and Kane Wu, begins:

Go-Jek, the Indonesian motorcycle-hailing startup backed by KKR & Co., Warburg Pincus LLC and others, is in talks with investors to raise $1 billion, people familiar with the process said.

The new money would give the Jakarta company added power to battle rivals Uber Technologies Inc. and Singapore’s Grab for a lead in Southeast Asia’s largest economy. The company is seeking the new money to expand, with the first round of bids due by the end of this month, one of the people said.

Beijing’s China International Capital Corp. and Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group AG are among the banks assisting in raising funds, according to people familiar with the matter. Representatives for Go-Jek didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The cash injection would give Go-Jek a pre-money valuation of about $2 billion, the people said. A pre-money valuation refers to the value of a startup before fresh funds are included. Go-Jek raised around $550 million in August at an undisclosed valuation.

This would be more money for one of Southeast Asia’s hottest startups. And more competition for Uber and Grab in the region.

Categories
India Journalism Tech

By Me Yesterday: Microsoft, eBay, Tencent Pour $1.4 Billion into India’s Flipkart

The story begins:

NEW DELHI—Indian e-commerce startup Flipkart Group has raised $1.4 billion from Microsoft Corp., eBay Inc. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., taking a hit to its valuation to raise the cash it needs to defend its home market from Amazon.com Inc.

Flipkart, which was started in 2007 by two former Amazon employees, said Monday that the new investment values the Bangalore company at $11.6 billion. That allows Flipkart to retain its title as India’s most valuable startup but is still a step down from the $15 billion valuation it received during fundraising in 2015.

“This is a landmark deal for Flipkart and for India,” Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal said in the statement, calling it the company’s biggest fundraising round ever.

Flipkart said Chinese internet firm Tencent led the round, but a Flipkart spokeswoman declined to provide a breakdown of investments by company.

Separately, eBay said on Monday that it was selling its Indian business to Flipkart and was making a $500 million cash investment in the startup for an equity stake.

Categories
India Journalism

Facebook Live Video: A Colleague and I Talk Trump, H-1B Visas

I mentioned in this in my most recent Newley’s Notes, but wanted to embed the video here in an individual post.

On Friday my colleague Eric Bellman and I discussed Pres. Trump and potential restrictions on H-1B skilled worker visas. The video is embedded above and on The Wall Street Journal Facebook page here.

Click through for comments and reactions from viewers.

My most recent H-1B-related story is here: “Indian Outsourcing Firms Look to Get Ahead of Immigration Curbs.

A round-up of my most recent H-1B-related stories is here. And our previous Facebook Live appearances are here (discussing India’s “demonetization”) and here (talking about Amazon in India).