Reliance gesture towards reducing inflation elicits cynicism
Mumbai: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has announced a reduction of Rs2,000 per tonne on prices of all types of polymers. The company said this has been done to help the Government efforts to battle inflation and contain consumer prices.
RIL said with this reduction, the company will be absorbing 40 per cent of the rise in the input cost, and its prices will continue to be lower by $120 per tonne compared to the prevailing international prices.

Analysts tracking the sector, however, said the company had hiked prices of all its products earlier this month and the reduction of Rs2 per kg announced today will bring them down to the August levels.
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Birla Corp to set up captive power units - expand capacity
Kolkata: Birla Corporation Ltd, the flagship company of the MP Birla Group, has embarked upon a Rs280-crore capital expenditure programme. The company is setting up two thermal power plants of 27 MW capacity each at its factories at Satna in Madhya Pradesh and Chanderia in Rajasthan.

The power plant would be used for captive purposes. It would help the company to reduce its annual power cost. The total cost of setting up these power plants would be Rs.190 crore. Birla Corporation is also expanding its cement capacity at the Durgapur plant by 10 lakh tonnes. Currently, the installed capacity of the plant is 47.80 lakh tonnes. In 2003-04, it produced 47.7 lakh tonnes.

The new cement unit in Durgapur will produce Portland pozzolona cement. The cost of the project is estimated to be Rs90 crore. Hence, the total capital expenditure cost is Rs280 crore.

Birla Corporation ended 2003-04 with a 10.58 per cent growth in turnover at Rs1,243.18 crore against Rs1,124.20 crore in the previous financial year. Net profit jumped to Rs41.57 crore from Rs4.19 crore.
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BEL to pay 100 per cent dividend
Bangalore: Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) has announced a dividend of 100 per cent for 2003-04.

This is the highest dividend so far by the defence PSU and includes 80 per cent on the paid-up equity share of Rs10 each and a special one-time golden jubilee dividend of 20 per cent per share of Rs10 each, the company said in a release. This was approved at the company's AGM held in Bangalore on Monday.

During 2003-04, BEL achieved a turnover of Rs2,798.6 crore (compared with Rs2,508 crore in 2002-03) and profit after tax of Rs316.1 crore (Rs260.6 crore in 2002-03).
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Hindustan Motors set to launch Pajero variants
Kolkata: Hindustan Motors Ltd (HM) is set to launch new models of the Pajero in the sports utility segment within the next three months. The company is hopeful of selling 200 units of the Pajero in 2004-05, up from around 100 in 2003-04.

The company said that the number of Lancer car sales this year has been pegged at last year's level of 2,700 units. Ambassador sales have been pegged at 1,100-1,200 units every month. Birla said that HM would focus on the manufacture of auto components for both the domestic and overseas markets. Auto components would now be manufactured at HM's Uttarpara plant near Kolkata.

During 2003-04, HM's income from gross sales and services stood at Rs858.88 crore, down from Rs1,074.73 crore in 2002-03.
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Tata Motors registers 30 per cent sales growth
Hyderabad: Tata Motors Ltd has registered 29.7 per cent growth in passenger car sales in the first five months this fiscal, with the South contributing about 35 per cent of its overall sales volume across both petrol and diesel variants.

With the launch of the Indigo Marina, overall sales numbers could go up further.

Last year, Tata Motors accounted for about 14.5 per cent of overall sales in the passenger car segment. With the launch of the Indigo Marina and increased sales this year for the Indigo and the Indica, we expect to achieve about 18 per cent overall market share.."
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Hitachi Data: India is important emerging market
New Delhi: Terming India as an "important emerging market", Hitachi Data Systems Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd, said on Monday that it clocks 100 per cent growth in India annually and aims to double revenues every quarter now.

According to the company, in the Asia Pacific, China is the fastest growing market for them, while South Korea leads in terms of revenue contribution. However, China is catching up fast. In terms of growth rate, India is the next fastest growing market.

Hitachi announced its Tagma Store Universal Storage Platform aimed at improving storage efficiency and reducing the total cost of ownership of enterprise storage.

Hitachi claims that the storage platform changes the industry dynamics of data storage by powering an embedded virtualisation layer capable of managing up to 32 petabytes of internal and external storage.
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Ericsson to make radio base stations in India
New Delhi: Swedish telecom equipment maker Ericsson has said that it will manufacture radio base stations (RBS) at its unit in Jaipur. The unit, which currently makes core network equipment, is being upgraded to take on the new task.

Ericsson, which has 34 per cent share in India's telecom equipment market, will be the first multinational company to manufacture radio base stations in the country. Radio base stations are sites that enable mobile phones to work. They have transmitters and receivers in a cabin or cabinet connected to antennas and are essential for mobiles to work. Ericsson is also increasing its workforce in India from 800 to 1000 by January 2005. Base stations constitute about 60 per cent of the capital expenditure of any mobile operator. Currently, all the vendors import the equipment, which increases the cost.

The localisation of Ericsson's base stations could give the Swedish company an edge compared to imported products of Nokia and Siemens.
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Aztec Software to acquire Disha for $12.1 m
Bangalore: Aztec Software and Technology Services Ltd will acquire Disha Technologies in a $12.1-million stock and cash deal. The Bangalore-based firm would fork out $9.6 million in cash and $2.5 million in stock towards the acquisition of the software product-testing firm.

While this move would enable Aztec to foray into the testing services space, the acquisition itself is part of the company's growth strategy to strengthen its service offerings.

According to Aztec, testing has emerged into a booming market over the last one year, given the speed in which software products are being launched with new releases slated every quarter, and this has made testing a pre-requisite for a quick go-to-market. Globally, the testing services market is currently estimated at $3 billion with offshore testing pegged at $600 million.
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Progeon forays into knowledge services space
Bangalore: Progeon, the business process outsourcing subsidiary of Infosys Technologies, is foraying into the knowledge services space, to provide financial services to investment banks.

The knowledge services offering from Progeon includes equity research, credit analysis, fixed income research, bond analysis, economic analysis, industry analysis and company analysis for investment banks.
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Hyundai enters consumer electronics market
New Delhi: Korean giant Hyundai Corporation has entered the Indian consumer electronics market with a premium range of products across all major cities and plans to venture into the home appliances segment by the end of the year.

The product portfolio launched included plasma display panels, LCD TV, air-conditioners, DVD players and home theatre systems, a company statement said.

Hyundai Corporation is a general trading company having business interests in import and export of ships, plants, machines, steel, chemical products, apart from automobiles.
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