Buoyed by rising demand for its iPhones among aspirational youth and surge in exports, Apple clocked a 36 per cent increase in its operating revenue in India, surpassing Rs 66,700 crore (about $8 billion) in FY24. The tech giant also posted Rs 2,746 crore ($330 million) in profit last fiscal.

Apple India’s profit increased by 23 per cent in FY24 against Rs 2,229.6 crore ($268 million) in FY23.

Apple India’s revenue from operations grew to Rs 66,727 crore in FY24 from Rs 49,188 crore ($6 billion) in FY23, according to its financial statements.

Overall, the iPhone maker’s India operations reached $23.5 billion in value in the last fiscal (FY24).

Revenue from product sales increased by 36.53 per cent to Rs 63,297.25 crore ($7.6 billion) and service sales jumped by 21.41 per cent to Rs 3,430.45 crore.

Revenue of consumer durable manufacturers in India is projected to rise 11-12 per cent this fiscal (FY25), continuing the healthy run after a strong 13 per cent growth last fiscal, according to a report on Thursday.

A Crisil Ratings report said this will ride on rising adoption of consumer durable financing, which supports the trend of premiumisation, resulting in better realisations. Festive spending and strong growth in housing sales should support overall volumes, following strong demand for cooling products during the intense summer season this fiscal.

Operating margin will improve to 6.8-7 per cent this fiscal, from 6.5 per cent last fiscal, driven by better operating leverage and stable raw material prices, but remain below pre-pandemic highs owing to intense competition.

The growth in economic activity in India improved markedly to an eight-month high of 10.1 per cent in October from 6.6 per cent in September, despite an unfavourable base, according to a report on Thursday.

The strengthening in growth momentum was led by the favourable impact of the departure of monsoon on sectors like mining and electricity, healthy demand during the festive season that boosted vehicle registrations, fuel consumption, air travel and the surge in exports, said the report by credit rating agency ICRA.

“The early data for November appears upbeat, with a base-effect led rise in electricity demand growth and a continued festive boost in vehicle registrations,” the report mentioned.

World’s largest company Nvidia reported strong results for its third quarter (ended October 27) at $35.1 billion, up 17 per cent from the previous quarter and up 94 per cent from a year ago.

Nvidia has been a leader in AI, making it the most valuable company in the world with a market capitalisation of over $3.6 trillion.

“The age of AI is in full steam, propelling a global shift to Nvidia computing. Demand for Hopper and anticipation for Blackwell — in full production — are incredible as foundation model makers scale pretraining, post-training and inference,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia.

Despite a 94 per cent revenue growth in third quarter, the figure is still lower for the fourth quarter in a row, having grown 122 per cent, 262 per cent and 265 per cent in the three previous quarters. For the fourth quarter, Nvidia expects sales to be $37.5 billion plus or minus 2 per cent.

Samsung Electronics on Thursday unveiled Gauss 2, the second generation of its generative artificial intelligence (AI) model, at an annual tech conference.

During a keynote address of the online Samsung Developer Conference Korea 2024, the company highlighted the improved performance, efficiency and various application possibilities of its latest AI model.

Samsung Gauss, first introduced last year, is aimed at enhancing the work efficiency of workers by facilitating tasks, such as composing emails, summarising documents and translating content, reports news agency.

The second-generation version offers improved performance and efficiency in simultaneously handling various data types as a multimodal model integrating language, code and images.

Popular online gifting platform Ferns N Petals reported Rs 24.26 crore loss last fiscal (FY24), from Rs 109.5 crore in FY23.

According to its financial statements filed with the Registrar of Companies (ROC), the company's income from operations stood at Rs 705.4 crore in FY24, an increase from Rs 607.3 crore in FY23.

Ferns N Petals sells products through its website, third party e-commerce platforms, company-owned stores and franchises.

The cakes, flowers and gifting solutions segments account for 91 per cent of the company's revenue. It has increased by 15 per cent on an annual basis to Rs 640.75 crore in FY24, which was Rs 556.18 crore in FY23.

The UDAN scheme has fuelled the civil aviation sector, transforming air travel by enhancing regional connectivity and making it accessible for millions, the government said on Wednesday.

On November 17, the domestic aviation sector reached a historic milestone as 5,05,412 domestic passengers took to the skies in a single day, marking the first time daily passenger numbers crossed the 5-lakh mark.

With over 3,100 flights operating nationwide, this achievement highlights India’s growing prominence in the global aviation landscape.

“The UDAN scheme has been instrumental in this transformation, operationalizing 609 routes, including helicopter services, and seamlessly connecting states and union territories across the country,” said the Ministry of Civil Aviation.

Nokia on Wednesday said it has been awarded a multi-year, multi-billion extension deal by Bharti Airtel to deploy 4G and 5G equipment across India.

This strategic partnership with Nokia will “future-proof our network infrastructure and provide customers with unparalleled user experience along with a network that will be eco-friendly to minimise environmental impact,” said Gopal Vittal, Vice Chairman and MD, Bharti Airtel.

As part of the deal, for which financials were not disclosed, Nokia will deploy equipment from its ‘5G AirScale’ portfolio, including base stations, baseband units and the latest generation of Massive MIMO radios, powered by its ‘ReefShark System-on-Chip’ technology.

As disposable income and private consumption surge, the average price of homes sold in top seven cities was Rs 1.23 crore in the first six months this fiscal, against Rs 1 crore in the corresponding period of FY24, an increase of 23 per cent (year-on-year), according to a report on Wednesday.

There have been record new launches and sales of costlier homes across these cities amid escalating demand for luxury homes after the pandemic, as per the Anarock Group data.

“Over 2,27,400 units worth approximately Rs 2,79,309 crore were sold across the top 7 cities between April and September 2024. Contrastingly, the corresponding period of FY2024 saw approx. 2,35,200 units worth Rs 2,35,800 crores sold,” said Anuj Puri, Chairman, Anarock Group.

India’s insurtech sector has delivered 12 times revenue growth over the last 5 years, with cumulative funding surpassing $2.5 billion and ecosystem valuation over $13.6 billion, a report showed on Wednesday.

The country has more than 150 insurtech companies, with 10 unicorns and soonicorns and more than 45 minicorns, with 12 times increase in revenue over the past five years to reach $750 million, according to the report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in collaboration with the India InsurTech Association (IIA).

“Most of the insurtechs at scale are present in the aggregation and distribution legs of the value chain, with these accounting for over 80 per cent of the funding. There is a substantial opportunity for insurtechs to leverage data and technology in underwriting and claims, which can play a critical role in the continued growth of the insurance industry,” said Pallavi Malani, Managing Director and Partner, Lead-India Insurance Practice at BCG.