India's rapid urbanisation, robust infrastructure development, and economic growth have collectively driven significant demand, boosting construction activity in the industrial and logistics sector and supply, which is projected to surpass 60 million square feet annually over the next 3-4 years, a report said on Tuesday.

According to a report by Savills India, a global real estate advisory firm, "On an average, 3.4 per cent to 6.7 per cent increase in construction costs for general manufacturing and 4.8 per cent to 6.7 per cent for grade-a warehousing were registered between H1 2020 and H1 2024."

The report further said, "Among cities, Kolkata recorded the highest escalation for General Manufacturing costs at 6.7 per cent, followed closely by Chennai (6.5 per cent). For Grade-A Warehousing, Chennai led the surge with a 6.7 per cent increase, with Bengaluru and Hyderabad each witnessing a 6 per cent rise."

India's power consumption increased by 5.14 per cent to 125.44 billion units in November this year from 119.30 billion units in the same month last year, according to official figures.

The increase in power demand reflects the higher level of commercial and industrial activity taking place in the economy.

A report by ICRA stated that while there has been a moderation in growth in the earlier months, the full-year demand growth is expected to remain reasonable at 5.5 to 6 per cent. The decline in demand was due to a high base and the adverse impact of heavy rainfall during the monsoon months.

The highest supply in a day (peak power demand met) also rose marginally to 207.42 GW in November 2024 from 204.56 GW in the year-ago period.

Hyundai Motor, South Korea's biggest carmaker, said on Monday its sales fell 3.7 per cent last month from a year earlier due to a slowdown in vehicle demand.

Hyundai Motor sold 355,729 vehicles in November, down from 369,356 units a year earlier, the company said in a statement.

Domestic sales slumped 12.3 per cent to 63,170 units, while overseas sales slipped 1.6 per cent to 292,559, the statement said.

From January to October, its sales dropped 1.7 per cent to 3,809,424 units from 3,873,724 a year ago, reports news agency.

"The business environment is expected to remain challenging due to factors such as exchange rate and interest rate fluctuations, as well as heightened geopolitical risks," a company official said.

The passenger vehicle (PV) sales in India increased about 4 per cent (year-on-year) at 3,50,000 units in the month of November, data showed on Monday.

The total domestic PV wholesales stood at 335,954 units last month, driven by robust demand during the wedding season, increasing private consumption and SUV sales.

If we look at the January-November period, PV sales stood at 39,80,000 units, 4.1 per cent higher than 38,21,000 units sold in the same 11-month period in 2023.

In November, Maruti Suzuki India sold a total of 181,531 units, including domestic sales of 144,238 units, against 1,34,158 units in the year-ago month which is a growth of 5.5 per cent.

Driven by government initiatives like production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) sector is likely to grow to Rs 6 lakh crore in FY27 from Rs 1.46 lakh crore in FY22, and do well over short to medium term, a report showed on Monday.

The electronics manufacturing sector is on the cusp of a transformative journey, projected to grow at a robust CAGR of 26 per cent between the calendar year 2023-2030, reaching $500 billion.

India is emerging as a preferred global destination for electronics manufacturing due to increasing assembly activities and unprecedented demand in the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) sector, particularly in mobile phones, automotive, and industrial segments, according to the report by Motilal Oswal Wealth Management Ltd.

Favourable government policies such as the PLI schemes and the Semicon India programme, increasing domestic demand, and a robust push toward self-reliance is further propelling the opportunity.

The mega success story of Unified Payments Interface (UPI) continues, and it would be no surprise if the number of UPI transactions touches 25 billion a month towards the end of 2025, industry experts said on Monday.

After reaching a record high in October 2024 of 16.58 billion transactions and a value of Rs 23.50 lakh crore, UPI transactions in November stood at 15.48 billion transactions (38 per cent year-on-year growth) with a value of Rs 21.55 lakh crore (24 per cent YoY growth).

According to Sunil Rongala, SVP, Head–Strategy, Innovation and Analytics, Worldline India, October being the festive season saw a spike in transactions, which is usually seen across all spending channels.

“The number to consider is September 2024 transactions which was 15.04 billion indicating that UPI transactions are generally on a secular rise month-on-month,” he said.

The dip in India’s Q2 GDP growth is temporary, driven by seasonal monsoon effects and election-related factors, and should begin to correct by January-March period (Q4) FY25, according to industry experts.

For equity markets, this data is unlikely to have a significant impact.

“Any short-term dip in market sentiment could present an opportunity for investors with surplus funds to build long-term positions, given the underlying strength in key consumption and service sectors,” said Dr Vikas Gupta, CEO and Chief Investment Strategist, OmniScience Capital.

There are several encouraging signs within the data, like private consumption grew at an impressive 6 per cent, significantly higher than both the overall GDP growth rate and the 2.6 per cent recorded in Q2 FY24.

Samsung Electronics, a pioneer in the semiconductor industry, is facing significant challenges as the global memory market shifts toward artificial intelligence (AI)-focused technologies.

The company's three-decade reign as the world's leading memory chipmaker is under pressure, largely due to its slower response to the growing demand for high bandwidth memory (HBM), a critical component in AI accelerators, reports news agency.

The tech giant entered the semiconductor business in December 1974 after acquiring Korea Semiconductor under the vision of late Chairman Lee Kun-hee and quickly established itself as an industry leader.

In 1983, the company developed its first 64-kilobyte DRAM, paving the way for breakthroughs like the industry's first 64-megabit DRAM in 1992 and the world's first 1-gigabit DRAM in 1996.

Office rentals have shown a consistent increase in India's 10 top cities with Pune emerging as the leader with a compound annual growth rate of 6.9 per cent over the last 12 years, according to a commercial property rental index launched by the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-Bangalore) in collaboration with CRE Matrix.

The first edition of the index focuses on Grade A/A+ office assets of the top 10 Indian cities - Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Gurugram, Pune, Chennai, Noida, Navi Mumbai, Delhi and Thane, which covers 90 per cent of India's Grade A/A+ office stock. Indices for 36 macro-markets from each of these cities have also been recorded.

According to the report, in the last 12 years, IIMB-CRE Matrix CPRI was recorded for 10 cities across 50 quarters. In 74 per cent of instances, the index witnessed an increase on a Q-o-Q basis. Post-pandemic, since Q2 2022, 92 per cent of Index instances witnessed an increase on a Q-o-Q basis.

India is projected to dominate oil and gas transmission pipeline length additions in Asia by 2028, according to a new report.

India is expected to account for more than 40 per cent of the region’s total pipeline length additions by 2028, said the report by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

It revealed that India is likely to witness the start of operation of more than 50 planned and announced pipelines by 2028, adding a total transmission pipeline length of over 26,000 kms.

Of this, around 24,000 kms length additions would be from the planned pipelines that have received necessary approvals for development.