The government has scaled down its estimate of gold imports for November 2024 to $9.84 billion from the preliminary estimate of $14.86 billion announced last month, data compiled by the Commerce Ministry’s Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics showed on Wednesday.

The $5 billion downward revision in gold imports would lead to an equivalent reduction in the country’s trade deficit which would strengthen the macroeconomic fundamentals and be positive for the rupee, a senior official said.

The revised figures for inbound shipments of gold in value terms are nearly 34 per cent lower than what was reported last month.

Healthy farm incomes should provide support to rural incomes next fiscal (FY26) and lower inflation and scope for reduced interest rates should improve purchasing power for discretionary spending in India, a report showed on Wednesday.

This fiscal, real private consumption growth revived to 7.3 per cent from 4 per cent last fiscal.

“What’s salutary is that some factors that support consumption recovery in the short term have also turned supportive,” according to a Crisil Market Intelligence and Analytics report.

This fiscal, growth in government consumption expenditure rebounded to 4.1 per cent from 2.5 per cent last fiscal, supporting private consumption growth recovery.

Apple on Tuesday announced that its next "Swift Student Challenge" will open on February 3, aimed at uplifting the next generation of developers, creators, and entrepreneurs.

The challenge empowers students to join a worldwide community of developers using Swift -- the same programming language used by professionals -- to create the next wave of groundbreaking apps.

Previous Swift Student Challenge participants used their creativity to develop apps to solve real-world problems such as connecting peers to mental health resources and identifying ways to support sustainability efforts on campus.

“Apple’s Swift Student Challenge has given thousands of students around the world the opportunity to showcase their creativity, and coding capabilities, and learn real-world skills that they can take into their careers and beyond,” the company said.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd. (APSEZ) on Wednesday said it has been ranked among the top 10 global transportation and transportation infrastructure companies in the 2024 S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA).

With a score of 68 (out of 100) - a three-point improvement over last year, APSEZ is now placed in the 97th percentile within the sector, improving from the 96th percentile in 2023, the Adani Group company said in a statement.

"We firmly believe responsible business practices drive innovation and long-term success. The latest recognition only reflects our commitment to sustainability and corporate responsibility,” said Ashwini Gupta, Whole-Time Director and CEO of APSEZ.

Securitisation volume surged by around 27 per cent year-on-year to Rs 1.78 lakh crore in the first nine months of the current financial year, supported by large issuances from private sector banks, according to a CRISIL report released on Wednesday.

Among asset classes, vehicle loans (including commercial vehicles and two-wheelers) accounted for 48 per cent of securitisation volume (vs 40 per cent in the corresponding period in the last financial year).

In the third quarter alone, issuances touched Rs 63,000 crore, up 60 per cent year-on-year, with private sector banks contributing to 28 per cent of this.

On the other hand, originations by non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) were up by a modest 5 per cent. Like-to-like growth (adjusted for volume from a large HFC that merged with a bank) for the nine months of this fiscal is in line with the moderation in the assets under management (AUM) growth.

Automaker Mahindra on Wednesday unveiled its new manufacturing and battery assembly facility at its Chakan plant, a fully integrated ecosystem dedicated to producing electric SUVs.

To boost EV manufacturing, Mahindra has allocated Rs 4,500 crores out of the total Rs 16,000 crore planned in the F22–F27 investment cycle — which includes powertrain development, two product top hats including software and tech and manufacturing capacity.

The company said the new EV manufacturing hub is a fully integrated, highly automated manufacturing ecosystem that leverages over 1,000 robots and multiple automated transfer systems.

The EV facility also targets a 25 per cent gender diversity ratio, reinforcing the plant’s inclusive and future-ready work culture.

Electric vehicle (EV) company Ola Electric Mobility Limited has received an administrative warning from the markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), for violating disclosure norms.

The reason cited is that Ola Electric announced its e-scooter expansion plans first on social media instead of announcing it on the stock exchanges.

In an administrative warning, sent via email on January 7 for violating various sections of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015, the regulator asked the EV firm to ensure "equal, timely, cost-efficient access to relevant information for all investors” via stock exchanges.

“By failing to first disseminate the information on the stock exchanges and instead announcing it on social media platforms, you have failed to provide equal and timely access to information to all investors,” read the SEBI warning.

Samsung Electronics on Wednesday estimated its fourth-quarter operating profit more than doubled from a year earlier but missed market expectations due to lacklustre performance in its high-end memory chips for artificial intelligence accelerators.

The world's biggest maker of memory chips expected an operating profit of 6.5 trillion won ($4.46 billion) for the three months ended in December, up from 2.82 trillion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.

But the operating profit is 15.7 per cent lower than the average estimate based on a survey by Yonhap Infomax, the financial data firm of News Agency.

On-quarter, operating profit retreated 29.19 per cent from 9.18 trillion won.

Samsung's lower-than-expected operating figure comes amid prolonged delays in securing Nvidia Corp.'s approval for its high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for AI computing.

LG Electronics, South Korea's leading home appliance maker, on Wednesday estimated its fourth-quarter operating profit decreased more than 53 percent from a year earlier due to global economic uncertainties.

Operating profit for the three months ended in December dropped to an estimated 146.1 billion won ($100.7 million) from 312.5 billion won in the same period of 2023, the company said in a regulatory filing.

Sales, however, increased 0.2 per cent to 22.77 trillion won. The data for net earnings was not available, reports Yonhap news agency.

For the whole of 2024, LG Electronics said its operating profit likely decreased 6.1 percent on-year to 3.43 trillion won, while its sales climbed 6.7 percent to hit an all-time high of 87.74 trillion won.

As artificial intelligence (AI) diffusion accelerates across enterprises and society at a rate that is faster than any prior technology, 69 per cent of executives, including in India, believe it brings new urgency to reinvention and how technology systems and the processes it enables are designed, built and operated, a report showed on Tuesday.

The ‘Accenture Technology Vision 2025’ also predicted that AI will increasingly act as a technology development partner, a personal brand ambassador, power robotic bodies in the physical world, and foster a new symbiotic relationship with people to bring out the best in each other.

According to Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO, Accenture, unlocking the benefits of AI will only be possible if leaders seize the opportunity to inject and develop trust in its performance and outcomes in a systematic manner so businesses and people can unlock AI’s incredible possibilities.