Namaste, Sat Sri Akaal, and Salaam. 🫡

Happy Monday, folks. Hope life is good.

Today we’re diving into -
- Amazon India’s bumper cloud earnings,
- NPCI and UAE’s latest deal,
- And SaaS proficorn Zoho’s big bucks.

Our read time today is 4 minutes and 51 seconds - faster than you can prep a 3am bread-bhujia-ketchup platter…

Let's dive in. 👇

Market Vibe Check

Amazon India’s cloud computing arm flexes it’s muscles. 💪

TLDR -
- Amazon India’s cloud revenue went from $1.1bn → $1.5bn.
- They’re in the green now, and can technically “self-sustain”.
- But they’re continuing with their strategy of throwing insane amounts of money at anything that looks good.

Bezos baba is on Cloud 9…

Amazon India’s cloud computing business is doing some amazing numbers.

They swung from a $280k loss last year to a $7.3 million profit, all while growing their revenue to a stellar $1.5 billion.

To save on tax, AWS India transfers 80% of all it’s sales as “reseller fees” to a shell company in Singapore.

Last year’s reseller fees were $1.1bn - so we can assume a 40% jump in top-line.

Amazon has shown a lot of confidence in India of late.

They announced plans to invest $13bn+ last month by building data centers, business parks, and a tech-first ecommerce network.

Wider cloud adoption is ONLY gonna go up, and India is a perfect place to build the backend for it all.

Relatively safe, very cheap labour cost, and insanely generous government subsidies.

Make hay while the sun shines!

NPCI teams up with UAE to build a crazy card system. 💳

TLDR -
- NPCI 🤝 UAE to build a local-only cashless network.
- It’s called an NDCS (national domestic card scheme) and it’s gonna further the digital UAE agenda.
- An NDCS also lets the government keep a tighter watch on where money is moving - which is super important because UAE is still on the grey list.

NPCI (India’s payments council) is the big daddy on anything to do with digital transactions.

They just signed a deal with UAE’s central bank to build them a NDCS - which is a national domestic card scheme.

An NDCS is a type of payments network that is confined to one geography, but functions like normal.

The biggest reason that the UAE wants this system is because they want to move AWAY from cash.

Almost 67-70% of all transactions in the UAE happen in cash (even I was a little stunned after seeing this number)

This hurts the government, since tons of store owners can “under-report” income and get away with paying no tax.

An easy long-term solution is this NDCS - onboarding millions of people digitally with minimal headache and stress.

Plus, the tax collections over the next 20-25 years outweigh the cost setting up this grid by FAR.

Ka-ching…

Zoho gets bigger and better. 🚀

SaaS is eating the world…

Chennai-based SaaS unicorn Zoho clocked a 40% surge in revenues - sitting at a neat and clean $1.5bn.

Recently, Zoho surpassed 100 Mn users across its business apps, and they now serve over 700K businesses across 150 countries.

Software is an AMAZING business.

Once the actual tech is built, there is literally no cost other than your advertising/marketing.

You just have to be a killer salesman…

In other news… ☕

ChatGPT’s mobile app crosses the $5m MRR mark (TC)

GSK signs a $3bn vaccine deal with a Chinese company (FT)

Israel brings 300k folks into the front lines (CNBC)

Odey shuts down their wealth management business (BBG)

BCCI’s incompetence casts a shadow of doubt on India (BBG)

And that’s the tea the chai for today.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoyed it. Have a mauj-masti filled day.

Lots of ❤️,

Team Cutting Chai0