Apple’s smartphone shipments in China dropped by 9 per cent in the first quarter of 2025 to 9.8 million iPhones, down from over 10.7 million a year earlier, according to latest data from global market research firm IDC.

The company was the only major smartphone maker to report a decline in shipments during this period -- highlighting its growing struggle in the world’s largest smartphone market.

Its market share fell to 13.7 per cent, down sharply from 17.4 per cent in the previous quarter. This marks the seventh consecutive quarter of decline for the US tech giant in China.

In contrast, Chinese smartphone leader Xiaomi saw a sharp 40 per cent rise in shipments, reaching 13.3 million units.

The US has informed the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that the Donald Trump administration’s decision to levy tariffs on steel and aluminium, was based on national security grounds and should not be considered as safeguard measures.

The US defence came in response to India filing a request with the WTO on April 11 for the holding of consultations with the US on the tariff hikes under the WTO's Safeguards Agreement.

India has said that despite the US's characterisation of these measures as security measures, they are, in essence, safeguard measures.

It also pointed out that the US has failed to notify the WTO Committee on Safeguards under a provision of the Agreement on Safeguards on taking a decision to apply these measures.

India is a key resource talent hub for AI professionals, which is a clear indicator of the efforts of the government and the industry to nurture an environment for adoption on AI, Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (Independent Charge), Jayant Chaudhary, has said.

Speaking at Africa’s largest tech and startup show, ‘GITEX Africa 2025’, the minister said that India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has driven transformative changes across areas, especially through developments of digital identity (Aadhaar), digital payments (UPI), e-commerce (ONDC), and healthcare.

“And we are increasingly integrating advanced technologies – AI, cybersecurity, fintech, and digital infrastructure – into our skilling ecosystem. Skill India Digital Hub (SIDH), a digital public infrastructure for the skilling ecosystem has onboarded more than one crore users in over one and a half years. These are areas, rich with potential, for collaboration with our African partners and we can collectively grow our economies through sustained partnerships,” the minister told the gathering at the event in Morocco capital Marrakesh.

The slowdown seen in the quarterly results by India's information technology (IT) companies is not just a result of disruption due to artificial intelligence (AI) and Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs but also inefficiency in products and services of the broader software industry, Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu said on Friday.

In a post on X social media platform, Vembu said: “My operating thesis: what we are seeing is not just a cyclical downturn and it is not just AI related. Even without the uncertainty induced by tariffs, there was trouble ahead. The broader software industry has been quite inefficient, both in products and services”.

He further stated that these inefficiencies have accumulated over decades of a prolonged asset bubble.

“Sadly, we adapted to a lot of those inefficiencies in India. Our jobs came to depend on them. The IT industry sucked in talent that may have gone into manufacturing or infrastructure (for example),” said Vembu.

Two more independent directors at Gensol Engineering Ltd have resigned amid mounting troubles for the company, as the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) barred Gensol promoters Anmol Singh Jaggi and Puneet Singh Jaggi over alleged fund diversion and record falsification.

Harsh Singh and Kuljit Singh Popli have left the company with immediate effect, according to an exchange filing. This comes a day after another independent director, Arun Menon, tendered his resignation.

In his resignation letter, Popli said he was "pained" by the recent developments. "I was hoping for some positive developments to happen past one month, however the way things have unfolded and come to light, I am not in a position to continue as Independent Director," he wrote.

South Korean stocks rose nearly 1 percent on Thursday as investors became optimistic about the ongoing trade talks between the United States and Japan. The local currency rose to a more than four-month high against the US dollar.

The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) added 22.98 points, or 0.94 percent, to close at 2,470.41, rebounding from a 1.21 percent drop the previous day, reports news agency.

Trade volume was moderate at 589.6 million shares worth 6.5 trillion won ($4.58 billion), with winners beating losers 638 to 225.

Institutions purchased a net 346.2 billion won worth of stocks, while foreign and retail investors sold a net 351.9 billion won and 87.4 billion won, respectively.

The board of IDFC FIRST Bank on Thursday approved raising up to Rs 7,500 crore from Warburg Pincus and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) amid global uncertainties.

The board approved a preferential issue of equity capital (CCPS) amounting to approximately Rs 4,876 crore to Currant Sea Investments, an affiliate company of global growth investor Warburg Pincus and approximately Rs 2,624 crore to Platinum Invictus Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) managed by its Private Equities Department.

The proposed issues are subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals. The rationale behind this fundraising is that the bank plans to scale up its optimal profitability and aims to grow the overall loan book at 20 per cent for the next few years, the bank said in an investor presentation.

LG CNS, an information technology affiliate of South Korea's LG Electronics, said on Thursday it has signed agreements to develop electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure and smart city solutions in the United States.

Under a deal with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, LG CNS will install and operate EV charging stations at the Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT), a former military supply base now being redeveloped into a modern commercial, manufacturing hub.

As part of the Pilots at BAT programme, the company will also implement a charging and discharging control system, along with a mobile app providing real-time energy usage data for users, according to LG CNS, reports news agency.

Google on Wednesday said that it removed 247.4 million ads in India last year, while suspending 2.9 million advertiser accounts in the country.

The top policy violations were financial services, trademark, abusing the ad network, personalised ads and gambling/games, the tech giant said in its ‘2024 Ads Safety Report’.

2024 was a major year for global elections, including in India. “As part of this effort, we continued to expand our identity verification and transparency requirements for election advertisers to new countries,” said the company.

In the past year alone, Google verified more than 8,900 new election advertisers and removed 10.7 million election ads from unverified accounts globally.

These measures, which include “paid for by” disclosures and a public transparency report of all election ads, help ensure users around the world are able to identify election ads and know who paid for election ads they see.

GM Korea, the South Korean unit of General Motors, plans to increase production at its Incheon plant by about 9 per cent this year, the company's labour union said on Wednesday, easing concerns over a potential withdrawal amid growing uncertainty over the United States' tariff policies.

According to the union, the company recently said it would allocate an additional 21,000 vehicles to the plant in Bupyeong, Incheon, west of Seoul, for production this year.

The increase amounts to nearly 9 per cent of the plant's annual production capacity of 250,000 units, reports Yonhap news agency.

The move comes as speculation has grown about a possible exit of GM from South Korea in response to Washington's 25 per cent tariff on imported vehicles.

In a shocking revelation, Gensol Engineering Limited (GEL) promoters Anmol Singh Jaggi and Puneet Singh Jaggi have been found to be diverting funds meant for electric vehicle (EV) procurement to buy a luxury apartment in Gurugram's upscale residential project -- The Camellias by DLF.

The findings were part of an interim order issued by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on April 15, which has led to a major crackdown against Gensol Engineering Limited (GEL) and its promoters.

The SEBI has barred both Jaggi brothers from holding any directorship in the company and restricted them from accessing the securities market.

According to the regulator, loans taken to buy EVs for the ride-hailing service BluSmart were routed through multiple entities and ultimately used for personal gains.

South Korean chipmakers will likely face only limited impact from the new US restrictions on exports of Nvidia’s H20 artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators to China, experts here said on Wednesday.

Nvidia said it has been notified by the US authorities that the company now requires a license to export its H20 chips to China for the indefinite future, reports news agency.

The H20 accelerators were the most advanced AI chip the company could still export to China under the existing US export ban on high-performance AI chips.

SK hynix supplies its eight-layer HBM3E, the fifth-generation high bandwidth memory (HBM), for the H20 chips. Samsung Electronics Co. does not supply HBM for this particular chip.

Experts say the new regulation is unlikely to significantly affect the South Korean semiconductor firms in the short term, as SK hynix is currently focused on its latest 12-layer HBM3E, a key component in high-performance AI chips destined for markets outside China.

India secured the second spot globally in terms of funding raised by the direct-to-consumer (D2C) sector in 2024, a new report said on Wednesday.

The country ranks just behind the United States and ahead of China, the UK, and Italy, according to a Tracxn’s report.

The report shows that the total funding in India’s D2C space stood at $757 million in the previous year.

India is home to more than 11,000 D2C companies, out of which around 800 have managed to secure funding so far.

The early-stage and seed-stage funding saw growth. Early-stage investments rose by 25 per cent to $355 million in 2024 compared to 2023, while seed-stage funding climbed 18 per cent to $141 million.

India’s total exports (merchandise and services combined) saw a 2.65 per cent annual growth at $73.61 billion in the month of March, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry data showed on Wednesday.

Total imports (merchandise and services) for March 2025 is estimated at $77.23 billion, registering a positive growth of 4.90 per cent.

Major drivers of merchandise exports growth in FY 2024-25 (April-March) include coffee, tobacco, electronic goods, rice, jute manufacturing, including floor covering, meat, dairy and poultry products, tea, carpet, plastic and linoleum, RMG of all textiles, drugs and pharmaceuticals, cereal preparations and miscellaneous processed items, mica, coal and other ores, minerals including processed minerals, engineering goods and fruits and vegetables.

India and US are working to sign the first tranche of a Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) to bring down tariffs before the agreed timeline of the fall of 2025 as the the terms of reference for the pact have already been finalised.

"India and US Bilateral Trade Agreement BTA terms of reference have been finalised when the US team was here. The first tranche negotiations will start virtually on the various chapters within this week, and the talks in the physical mode may start at the end of the month," Additional Secretary, Commerce, Rajesh Agarwal said on Tuesday.

"India has decided to go for a path of trade liberalisation with the US," Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal told journalists.

He said both India and the US would benefit if the trade deal is wrapped up before the Fall of 2025.

India’s apprenticeship landscape is undergoing a remarkable transformation, with organisations increasingly embracing LGBTQIA+ inclusion as a core workforce strategy, according to a report on Tuesday.

The report, by TeamLease Degree Apprenticeship, showed that 64 per cent of employers have expressed openness to hiring LGBTQIA+ apprentices -- a significant step toward fostering diversity in the workplace.

While 24 per cent of businesses remain neutral, a clear shift is evident as leading industries take proactive measures to champion inclusion.

Swiggy's share price has taken a sharp hit this year by plunging 38.32 per cent year-to-date (YTD) on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), as investor sentiment weakens over the company's rising losses and margin pressures.

The stock, which closed flat at Rs 334.5 on Tuesday, has been under sustained pressure amid growing concerns about its quick commerce business and slowing growth in the food delivery segment.

Over the past six months, the stock has fallen 26.64 per cent, while the last one-month data shows a decline of 6.05 per cent on the NSE.

Even though Swiggy saw a minor recovery of 4.29 per cent in the past five days, the broader trend remains negative as analysts warn of persistent challenges ahead.

Bank of America (BofA) last month downgraded Swiggy’s rating to 'underperform', slashing its target price from Rs 420 to Rs 325.

मंगलवार को एक रिपोर्ट में कहा गया कि भारत में 10 में से नौ से अधिक (92 प्रतिशत) सॉफ्टवेयर विकास नेताओं का मानना है कि AI एजेंट ऐप विकास के लिए पारंपरिक सॉफ्टवेयर टूल की तरह ही आवश्यक हो जाएंगे।

वैश्विक CRM लीडर Salesforce की रिपोर्ट के अनुसार, भारत में सॉफ्टवेयर विकास नेता तेजी से AI एजेंटों को अपना रहे हैं, उन्हें आवश्यक उपकरण के रूप में देख रहे हैं जो विकास के अगले युग को आगे बढ़ाएंगे।

एजेंटिक AI डेवलपर्स को कोड लिखने और डिबगिंग जैसे नियमित कार्यों से हटकर अधिक रणनीतिक, उच्च-प्रभाव वाले काम करने में सक्षम बनाता है।

डेवलपर्स द्वारा कम-कोड/नो-कोड टूल द्वारा संचालित एजेंटों का तेजी से उपयोग करने के साथ, विकास पहले से कहीं अधिक तेज़, आसान और अधिक कुशल होता जा रहा है - डेवलपर्स की कोडिंग क्षमताओं की परवाह किए बिना।

More than nine in 10 (92 per cent) software development leaders in India believe AI agents will become as essential to app development as traditional software tools, a report said on Tuesday.

Software development leaders in India are rapidly embracing AI agents, viewing them as essential tools that will drive the next era of development, according to the report by Salesforce, the global CRM leader.

Agentic AI lets developers shift from routine tasks like writing code and debugging to more strategic, high-impact work.

With developers increasingly using agents powered by low-code/no-code tools, development is becoming faster, easier, and more efficient than ever — regardless of developers’ coding abilities.

India's retail real estate sector is going through a major transformation as over 70 per cent of the 12.3 million square feet of new Grade A mall space expected in 2025 and 2026 will be of Superior Grade (A+), a new report said on Tuesday.

This change is being driven by rising consumer aspirations, higher spending, and a shift in strategy by both brands and developers, according to a new report by Cushman and Wakefield.

These new malls will offer better quality, service, and experience, marking a shift from simply expanding space to upgrading standards.

Saurabh Shatdal, Executive Managing Director at Cushman & Wakefield, said India’s retail sector is changing fast, and so are consumer expectations.

Artificial intelligence (AI) spending in India is set to grow at 35 per cent annually, reaching $9.2 billion by 2028, a report showed on Tuesday.

This emphasises the need for better data quality, governance, and cloud migration to maximise AI’s potential, according to the report by Qlik while releasing a new research paper by International Data Corporation (IDC).

About 51 per cent of Indian enterprises host AI solutions in the cloud, but poor data quality remains a challenge.

The report highlighted data quality as a major barrier, with 54 per cent of Indian organisations citing it as a challenge, surpassing Australia at 40 per cent, ASEAN at 40 per cent, and the APAC average of 50.4 per cent.

Additionally, 62 per cent of Indian organisations recognised the need to improve data governance and privacy policies, while 28 per cent struggled with AI data bias, more than ASEAN at 21.8 per cent and Australia at 20 per cent, the report mentioned.

India’s luxury housing segment recorded 28 per cent jump in sales during January-March period this year, compared to the same period of the previous year, across India’s top seven cities, according to a report by real estate consultant CBRE South Asia.

The segment, which comprises homes priced at Rs 4 crore and above, registered total sales of approximately 1,930 luxury units during the quarter.

Among the top seven cities, Delhi-NCR led in quarterly luxury unit sales, recording nearly half of total sales at around 950 units, followed by Mumbai, which had a share of 23 per cent in overall sales.

Bengaluru recorded the highest growth among southern cities, growing from just 20 units in Q1 2024 to about 190 units in January-March 2025. Kolkata and Chennai had a 5 per cent share in overall luxury unit sales, according to the report.

Female members of the owner families of South Korea's 20 largest business groups received more than 500 billion won ($351.5 million) in dividends last year, industry data showed on Tuesday.

A total of 577.9 billion won in dividends was paid to 101 female members of the families behind the top 20 conglomerates, down 7.1 percent from a year earlier, according to the data by the Seoul-based market tracker Leaders Index.

Leading the list were three women from Samsung Group, who together received a combined 409.4 billion won, reports news agency.

Lee Boo-jin, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Samsung Group's hotel and retail affiliate Hotel Shilla, topped the list with 148.3 billion won in dividends.

South Korea's car exports inched up from a year earlier in March, driven by rising demand from Asian nations while shipments to the United States dropped sharply ahead of the start of US tariffs on auto imports, data showed on Tuesday.

The value of outbound shipments of automobiles came to US$6.24 billion last month, up 1.2 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, reports news agency.

It marked the second consecutive month of increase and the second-highest export value ever for any March, it added. In terms of volume, however, exports fell 2.4 percent on-year to 240,874 vehicles.

The export value of eco-friendly cars declined 3.1 percent on-year to $2.02 billion in March. In terms of volume, however, sales advanced 5.8 percent to 68,760 units.

Of the total, 41,969 were hybrid models, and 20,757 units were electric vehicles (EVs), the data showed.

Homegrown electric two-wheeler manufacturer Okinawa Autotech has reported a steep 87 per cent drop in revenue in FY24.

The company’s revenue from operations slipped to just Rs 182 crore in FY24 from Rs 1,144 crore in the previous financial year, according to its latest financials.

Okinawa also posted a loss of Rs 52 crore in FY24, a sharp contrast to the Rs 166 crore of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) it had recorded in FY23.

The company’s operating margins and return on capital employed (ROCE) also took a major hit, with EBITDA margin falling to (-)25.8 per cent and ROCE to (-)102 per cent.

For every rupee Okinawa earned in FY24, it spent Rs 1.38, as per its financials.

Hyundai Mobis said on Monday it has developed a new electric vehicle (EV) battery safety technology that automatically discharges fire suppressant in the event of a battery cell ignition to prevent fires from spreading to adjacent cells.

The battery technology uses heat-resistant materials and includes a fire suppression device integrated with the battery case. Hyundai Mobis said it has filed domestic and international patents for the technology, reports news agency.

Hyundai Mobis, an auto parts unit of Hyundai Motor Group, said the technology allows the prevention of thermal runaway, a term referring to the process of uncontrollable rapid overheating, at the source, going beyond merely delaying the spread of heat and flames.

The company said the technology is considered a first-of-its-kind innovation that has not yet been commercialised anywhere globally.

South Korean smartphone and personal computer makers are staying cautious as unpredictable US tariff policies increase uncertainty around their future production strategies.

On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump's administration exempted smartphones, computers and some other electronic devices from country-specific reciprocal tariffs, including the 125 percent levies imposed on Chinese imports.

The move was seen as a temporary relief for U.S. tech giants like Apple Inc., which relies heavily on Chinese suppliers for its iPhones and other products, reports news agency.

IT services major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has delayed salary hikes, as the management remained uncleared on the increment cycle amid global uncertainty arising due to US tariffs.

TCS typically revises the wages of its staff in April every year. The employee count at the end of fiscal 2025 stood at 6,07,979, as the company added 625 employees in the fourth quarter. In the entire financial year, the company hired 42,000 freshers.

The IT major now plans to make the salary revision decision based on the evolving business environment as uncertainty looms the sector.

The attrition rate in the fourth quarter for TCS increased to 13.3 per cent from 13 per cent in the last quarter.

Social media platform Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are ‘hand in glove’ with China, and have betrayed American values, according to a whistleblower.

A former Meta executive, Sarah Wynn-Williams, has come forward as a whistleblower, accusing the social media giant of compromising US national security to establish a substantial business presence in China.

Wynn-Williams accused Meta executives of allowing the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) to access user data, including that of Americans.

She noted that Meta worked "hand in glove" with Beijing to create censorship tools that were used to silence critics of the CPC.

With rising global demand for semiconductors driven by AI, 5G, EVs, internet of things (IoT) and advanced computing, India is leveraging its talent, policy push and strategic location to become a hub for semiconductor innovation and manufacturing, according to industry experts.

India is fast positioning itself as a key player in the global semiconductor ecosystem, as the industry hits a record $656 billion in 2024, growing over 21 per cent year-on-year, As per recent report released by Gartner, Nvidia leads the top 10 chip suppliers and biggest contributions is from GPU, CPU, Memory and Mobile SoC’s.

Under the government’s ‘Semicon India’ programme, a Rs 76,000 crore ($10 billion) incentive package has been launched to boost domestic chip manufacturing, advanced packaging, and semiconductor design.

“Coupled with strong participation from industry, over $20 billion in investments have already been committed by IESA member companies and global players across multiple Indian states,” said Ashok Chandak, President SEMI IESA.

Electronic permits in India reached a record 124.5 million in the month of March, a 20 per cent increase on an annual basis, showing robust factory activity.

The sharp rise in India’s goods movement, which is 11.5 per cent more than February, means the domestic economy remains resilient, showed government data.

Electronic permits or e-way bills are used to ship goods within and across states. E-way bills are mandatory for the movement of consignments worth Rs 50,000 and more. A hike in E-way bills indicates higher movement of goods.

E-way bill generation has maintained an upward trajectory for 25 months, with March setting a new record. The electronic permits are mandatory for tracking the movement of goods across the country.

India's natural gas consumption is likely to rise by close to 60 per cent by 2030 as the country seeks to reduce dependence on oil imports and switch to cleaner fuels for running vehicles, cooking in household kitchens and industrial use, according to a study by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB).

The demand has been considered for fertiliser, power, refineries, petrochemical, other industrial and commercial establishments, households as well as Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) as transport fuel in the energy basket through 2030 and 2040, the report said.

Consumption of natural gas is expected to rise from 188 million standard cubic metres per day in 2023-24 to 297 mmscmd by 2030 under the 'Good-to-Go' scenario, which assumes moderate growth and developments based on current trends and commitments, the report observed.

The consumption is projected to rise further to 496 mmscmd by 2040 under the same scenario.

Worldwide semiconductor revenue reached $655.9 billion in 2024, up 21 per cent from $542.1 billion in 2023, according to a report released on Friday.

According to final results by market intelligence firm Gartner, Nvidia climbed to the No 1 position, overtaking Samsung Electronics and Intel for the first time.

“The position shift among the top 10 semiconductor vendor revenue ranking is due to large demand for AI infrastructure buildout and an increase of 73.4 per cent in memory revenue,” said Gaurav Gupta, VP Analyst at Gartner.

Nvidia moved to the No. 1 spot as a result of a marked increase in demand for its discrete graphic processing units (GPUs) that served as the primary choice for AI workloads in data centres, he added.

Payments through mobile phones in India recorded a 41 per cent jump in transaction volume to 88.54 billion and a 30 per cent rise in value to Rs 197.69 lakh crore in the second half of 2024.

India’s digital payments ecosystem witnessed a significant surge in the second half of 2024, driven by Unified Payments Interface (UPI), mobile payments and cards, according to Worldline India’s Digital Payments Report 2H 2024.

This was possible due to the robust growth in digital payments infrastructure. The UPI QR (Quick Response) codes through which users conduct their digital transactions using their mobile phones touched 63.34 crore at the end of December 2024, while PoS terminals increased by 23 per cent to 10 million during this period, the report states.

South Korean auto parts suppliers are scrambling to respond to new US tariffs on imported vehicles and automotive parts, industry insiders said on Friday, arguing the tariffs not only pose a serious challenge to automakers, including local industry leader Hyundai Motor Group, but also threaten to disrupt the broader industry supply chain.

The United States' Donald Trump administration began imposing a 25 percent tariff on imported vehicles last week and is set to extend the same rate to auto parts beginning May 3, a move that has disrupted production planning and investment strategies across the sector, reports news agency.

While much of the recent attention has focused on finished vehicle exports, South Korea's parts suppliers are also grappling with mounting uncertainties and risks, according to industry officials.