2. OVL may buy Exxon stake in
Angolan block for $2 b
India’s largest explorer, Oil & Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), is in
talks with global energy giant ExxonMobil’s Angolan arm, Esso
Exploration, to buy its 25% stake in a discovered oil field for
about $2 billion.
ONGC Videsh, or OVL is the foreign arm of state-run ONGC.
The block will produce 300,000 barrels of crude oil per day by
2012 at its peak.
OVL is expected to face tough competition from Chinese oil
companies
3. Old is Gold: Ponds to take on
Olay
India’s largest consumer products company, HUL, is set to
counter P&G’s anti-ageing cream, Olay.
HUL is launching more than half-a-dozen premium
products from the Ponds Gold Radiance portfolio.
Anti-ageing segment accounts for 10% of the total skin
care market.
In Sept, Ponds had a 16.5% share, Garnier 18.9% share.
4. Contd…
Olay with 36.7% share tops the anti-ageing segent.
Ponds Gold Radiance, priced between Rs. 500-Rs.1,000 will be
most expensive brand in HUL’s skin care portfolio, a business
that is the most profitable segment for the company.
Skin care segment is worth of Rs. 3500 crore.
HUL is the market leader controlling over half the market with
popular mass brands such as Fair & Lovely and Vaseline.
5. Maruti Suzuki sales cross 1 lakh
mark
Boost in sales in October.
Easy finance and festive season drove up demand.
Crossed 1 lakh mark for the first time in its 27–years history driven
mainly by the strong demand for its fuel-efficient compact cars such as
Alto and Wagon R.
M&M posted a strong growth of 34% in its domestic sales.
Tata motors’ sales increase by 22%.
The country’s largest automaker’s small car Nano is struggling to draw
customers.
6. SBI finally begins to realise
growth’s on cards
Targeting upper-middle class with a Platinum card that
offers a wide range of benefits and has a low entry barrier.
SBI cards, a 60:40 JV between SBI and GE Capital.
The cards company has reported a loss of Rs. 321 crore fpr
2008-09.
The whole industry had seen a 33% drop in the number of
cards from 27-28 million to 18 million.
7. Contd…
Plans to issue 40,000 cards every month.
In the past, cards were sold by the marketing agents at
petrol pumps but now they are being sold largely to
customer at bank branches.
8. Google races to No 2 spot in
smartphone mart
Google’s Android software platform rose to No 2 spot globally.
Nokia’s Symbian continued to lead the market with 37% share.
Android has 17% share.
Surpassed Research in Motion (RIM), Apple and Microsoft this
year.
Android phones are made by companies including Motorola,
HTC Corp. and Samsung Electronics
9. RBI doubles online money transfer
limit via RTGS to Rs 2 lakh
Present limit is Rs 1 lakh.
New limit will come into effect from Nov 15 onwards.
The RTGS system facilitates high-value transfers of money from
one bank to another on a real-time and gross basis.
On an average, the central bank handles around 60,000 RTGS
and around 50,00,000 cheque clearing transactions per day.
For electronic transactions valued between Rs 1-2 lakh, the RBI
has created a new value band in its 'near real-time' National
Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) system to cater to retail bank
customers.
10. Contd…
Fund transfers up to Rs 1 lakh through the NEFT mode, will
continue to attract a service charge of Rs 5.
For fund transfers valued between above Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2
lakh, the RBI has revised the customer charges downward to Rs
15 from Rs 25 earlier.
The fee for fund transfers worth more than Rs 2 lakh remains
unchanged at Rs 25.
The NEFT has been a highly successful service ever since it was
launched in late 2005. More than 60 lakh transactions are
estimated to take place every month through this route.
