Namaste, Sat Sri Akaal, and Salaam. 🫡

Happy Friday, folks. 🙏

Today we’re diving into -
- The latest allegations thrown at Adani,
- Swiggy’s latest subscription-boosting play,
- And Amazon’s march to capture India’s logistics segment.

Our read time today is 4 minutes and 42 seconds - faster than you can change for Rapid Metro from Sikanderpur. 🔥

Let's dive in. 👇

Market Vibe Check

Adani gets stung yet again. 🔪

TLDR -
- Adani group has allegedly been using a web of shell companies to inflate their share price.
- They’ve done it with the help of two businessmen and a network of corporations in Dubai, Mauritius, India, and USA.
- This is technically insider trading of the highest order.

If you thought the Hindenburg drama was bad - think again.

This time, a network of investigative journalists have come forward with a long list of allegations against Adani.

If found guilty, he’s in some pretty hot water.

There are two big characters here - Ahli and Chang.

They’re both businessmen who are related to Vinod Adani - Gautam baba’s brother.

Through some clever financial engineering, they bought sizable stakes of 10-15% across Adani entities - WITHOUT their name surfacing anywhere.

These investments were overseen by Vinod Adani’s employees - which makes them insider transactions.

The legal limit for insider ownership in any Indian company is 75%.

Any more and it becomes way too easy to manipulate the share price, since small investors see the stock roaring and soaring while it’s all just manipulation.

If India’s regulators view Ahli and Chang as front-men for Adani’s price manipulation scheme, there could be a lot of fallout… 😬

Swiggy tries copying Zomato’s billion-dollar subscription playbook. 💸

TLDR -
- Swiggy is tying up with telecom companies to bundle-sell premium subscriptions.
- This gives them instant distribution advantage + a good shot at finding users that come back often.
- Zomato currently dominates the “premium” service, with over 30% of sales coming from Zomato Gold subs.

Bundling has taken everyone by storm - and Swiggy has just joined the party.

They’re teaming up with telcos to offer their Swiggy One subscription for free with a mobile data plan.

This helps them instantly tap into a potential user network of hundreds of millions and also find customers with a high repeat rate.

Customer loyalty has become key to shoring up revenue in the food delivery segment, and Zomato is the clear winner so far.

Almost 30% of their order value comes from Zomato Gold subscribers, which makes it a product that Swiggy can take notes from.

Good artists copy, great artists steal! 🎨

Amazon hits up the rails and the mail in India. 🚂✉️

TLDR -
- Amazon has been given clearance to use Indian railways to deliver things.
- They’ve also tied up with India Post to enable local sellers to drop-off Amazon items at their post offices.
- They also just launched सह-AI, an AI tool for SMBs.

A few interesting strategy shifts and wins for Amazon in India…

Win 1 - Railway delivery

Amazon can now deliver your parcels via Indian railway’s direct freight network.

This is great, since sellers in Jodhpur can get stuff delivered to buyers in Rewari without going thru the hassle of order fulfilment themselves.

Win 2 - India Post tie-up

Indian sellers in areas where Amazon doesn’t pick-up products can now drop off their shipments at India Post offices.

Amazon will pick their stuff up from there and deliver it as usual.

This is big news, since it helps rural/small-time traders do business without worrying about whether they can actually get products to their customers.

Win 3 - Gen-AI tool

Amazon basically launched an AI tool called “सह-AI”.

सह means “with”.

It’s basically gonna help get SMB owners up and running on Amazon.

Interesting times…

In other news… ☕

UBS cashes in on a $29 billion gain after the Credit Suisse conundrum (BBG)

A health-tech startup valued at $2 billion goes bankrupt. (TC)

China cuts FX requirements to support the currency. (FT)

Ambani shells out $721mn for bilateral cricket rights (Reuters)

Jio sub base passes the 450 million user mark (Inc42)

And that’s the tea the chai for today.

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

Lots of ❤️,

Team Cutting Chai