Namaste, Sat Sri Akaal, and Salaam. 🫡

Happy (well deserved) weekend folks.

Today we’re diving into -
- Zomato’s latest move to keep the profit party going,
- Maruti’s blistering manufacturing plans,
- Jio Financial Services’s planned IPO.

Our read time today is 4 minutes and 47 seconds - faster than you can finish a plate of momos in Mukherjee Nagar 🥟

Let's dive in. 👇

Market Vibe Check 🥵

Zomato squeezes profit from platform fees. 💸

TLDR -
- Markets have been sending Zomato flying after they hit their first profits.
- They’ve added a 2Rs. fee to every order they ship.
- If orders stay stagnant (which they won’t lol), Zomato will make $1.4m/month more profit from this negligible fee.

Zomato has tasted what it’s like to be a profitable, listed startup.

In the run-up to their first ever profit, markets showered them with lots of love.

Shares have been up 14% in the last week, 30% in the last month, and 2X over the last 6 months.

Their next strategy to push for more profits is a 2 INR platform fee - charged on EVERY ORDER.

It’s gonna be a negligible amount to 99.995% of customers, but adds up to lots of profit at scale.

So a little back-of-the-envelope maths -

Zomato made 1.95 million orders/day.

Adding in a 2 rupee fee to each makes them 3.9 million rupees of profit a day.

Adds up to over 11.5 Cr INR per month - or another ~1.4 million USD in pure bottom-line.

Scale is a crazy thing. 📈

Maruti lays out plans to supercharge their business. 🏎️

TLDR -
- Maruti is putting their chips on 2 new plants to boost manufacturing.
- Total capacity to be expanded to 4m cars/year by 2030.
- They also want to add 5-6 new EV models/lines to their portfolio.

Maruti wants to go global.

And they’re following the classic Modi playbook of make in India, make for the world.

Current capacity lies at ~2 million cars/year.

After creating new models, new export plans, and new factories, they are all set to boost this number to 4 million cars/year by 2030.

2 factories are gonna be built - one already under construction in Haryana and another one that’s yet to be built (probably somewhere near Gujarat).

Both will be able to churn out a million cars a year.

Maruti has always been a laggard when it comes to hopping on new trends. They missed out on both the SUV and EV trends and were slow to react to both.

But the Maruti of today wants to rebrand itself as something new and aspirational.

Time will tell where this ship sails. 🚢

Motabhai Mukesh Ambani gets ready to list Jio Financial Services. 🚀

TLDR -
- JioFS is expected to be listed soon.
- Company valuation is fixed at $20 billion.
- Has no revenue but owns 6.1% of Reliance Industries.

When Mukesh Ambani is in your line of business, you have to watch your back.

And his latest target has been plastered on every Indian asset manager’s back.

Reliance is expected to list Jio Financial Services soon - this is a quick run-down on some key things you should know.

- Valuation has been pegged at $20 billion.
- Business has NO REVENUE of now, but owns 6.1% of Reliance Industries (the big daddy)
- Already announced a partnership with Blackrock worth $300m to bring AM services to the average guy
- Will be a digital-first business. Full stop.

That’s all we know for now.

Mukesh Ambani has a history of disruption - he did it with telecom, he did it with petrochem, and he did it with mobile.

Chances are he’ll do it again. 🤷

In other news… ☕

Saudi state fund took a $15.6 BILLION hit from Softbank 😭 (BBG)

America follows up Oppenheimer with a fusion power breakthrough (FT)

Point72 makes their point on why defense tech is the next BIG thing (TC)

Indian government gets 44 corporate sign-ups for a $2.1bn for a manufacturing subsidy after laptop import restrictions (Inc42)

Pakistan WILL be coming to India for the World Cup YESSSSSSSS (Mint)

And that’s the tea the chai for today.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoyed it.

Lots of ❤️,

Team C