Hey everyone! Let's dive right into the top headlines of the week.
Our top story this week - A big milestone for Hindustan Unilever. The FMCG giant has just named its first-ever woman CEO — Priya Nair. She joined HUL way back in 1995, and in 2023, moved to a global role with parent company Unilever. She’s now Unilever’s President of Beauty & Wellbeing in London, managing a $13 billion portfolio across 20 countries! She’ll take over from Rohit Jawa, who led HUL for the past 2 years.
From legacy FMCG to modern quick commerce where the competition is getting intense. Zepto, Blinkit, and Instamart have a new rival in Delhi. Amazon’s 10-minute delivery service called Amazon Now, is now live in select parts of Delhi. After launching in Bengaluru, the retail giant is now chasing quick commerce in India's capital and soon plans to roll out the service to more cities. In fact, Amazon India country manager Sameer Kumar told Mint that he expects a “hockey stick shaped growth” for the service.
Please read/watch - Tesla’s India debut: First showroom to open in Mumbai on July 15
Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s Starlink just got the green light to operate in India after receiving the final regulatory approval. It’s received a 5-year licence from India’s space authority to roll out satellite internet. That puts Starlink in the same league as OneWeb and Reliance Jio. Next step? Setting up ground infrastructure and clearing India's security checks before going live. But all this could still take a few more months before Starlink is operational here.
And of course, Trump's trade tariffs issue continues to make headlines. The U.S President has once again said that a big trade deal with India is in the works. Meanwhile, Indian officials say that efforts are on to finalise the first phase of a bilateral trade agreement with the US by October this year but an interim deal is likely before that.
Meanwhile, Trump warned BRICS countries, including India, of a 10 per cent additional tariff, accusing the bloc of being anti-American. He also announced a 50 per cent tariff on copper products and threatened up to 200 per cent tariffs on pharmaceutical goods. The US has also sent letters to over 20 countries, including Japan and South Korea, notifying them of higher tariffs kicking off from August 1st.From trade to tech. A massive milestone for Chipmaker Nvidia, which has become the world’s most valuable company and the first company ever to hit a $4 trillion market cap.
Nvidia dominates the AI chip market with an 80 to 95% market share. Nvidia’s stock has seen a dramatic rise since early 2023. The company reached a $1 trillion valuation in June 2023. By February 2024, it doubled to $2 trillion. By June 2024, it crossed $3 trillion. And just over a year later, it has now hit $4 trillion. Its seen a 1000% stock surge since early 2023. That means $100K invested then? Now worth $1.1 million!And finally, a quick look at the Indian stock markets. Indian equities traded sideways amid a lack of major cues and as investors awaited clarity on India-US trade talks.
The Sensex ended the week in the red, hovering around 83,000. The Nifty also saw some decline but remained above 25,000.That’s all from us on the Hook Business News Wrap. Head over to the podcast section of Hook.Online to catch the latest episode of Startup to Scaleup.
