Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google to Invest $10B in India

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 349 posts

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#181

Post by intended »

_jgdh wrote: post #120
kamaal wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Indians care only about the cheapest workable plan, product, service, while making a purchase. It's not about Jio, it's about the 500 rupees free call, free SMS, free 4G plans. As long as Jio offers it they'll use it. They'll drop it as soon as something cheaper comes around. Mukesh Amabani, is mostly raising money because he had simply too much debt, and he is also getting old. It could also be a part of larger…

> They'll drop it as soon as something cheaper comes around. My bet - nothing cheaper comes along. Because Reliance's biggest competitive advantage is close links with the government, regardless of the party in power. A hypothetical competitor would find it difficult to get spectrum allocated, have trouble with land usage rights, tax issues like Vodafone had. There is a reason foreign companies set up joint ventures…

Indian telecom is now a classic oligopoly, far from our heady days as one of the most insanely competitive telecom markets.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#182

Post by crazygringo »

zwaps wrote: post #121

Off Topic: That website has no obvious opt-out option for EU users, just some dark pattern pop-up that also breaks the browser's "back" functionality. If anyone here works at techcrunch, please feel adequately ashamed about this. Thanks.

"Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#183

Post by intended »

qazpot wrote: post #147
newyankee wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sonia Gandhi literally flies in Reliance jets for her Western sojourns but you are only flagging the existing Govt. dishonestly.

Is Sonia Gandhi PM of India?

The joke is that rahul Gandhi is the PM of India and he should take responsibility for the state the country is in.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#184

Post by kranner »

divs1210 wrote: post #175
kranner wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who was the us in that scenario? There was no India back then, just a set of kingdoms and 'princely states' that hated each other as much as they opposed any European takeover. The present circumstances are in no way similar.

If there was no India before the British, then a) what was Christopher Columbus looking for? b) what was Vasco da Gama looking for? c) what were British/Dutch/French East India Companies looking for? d) what did Alexander's ambassador Megasthenes write about in his book Indica? e) where is Mahabharata set? Bharat is still one of India's official names. India has had a shared cultural history for a very long time. Tha…

The point here is not the historical name of the subcontinent or any shared cultural history (which all neighbouring states have). It is the lack of a common Indian government, comparable to the present time, that made the mistake of allowing too much investment by the EIC as you seemed to suggest. What the British Empire called India included parts of Afghanistan and Myanmar; modern India certainly has no claim over them.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#185

Post by eldaisfish »

buran77 wrote: post #76
bamboozled wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but they need to make logical decisions about which market to invest in, and it seems they've picked a favorite and decided ? If I was making that decision, it would be clearly easier to do business in India rather than China and likely far more lucrative with less concerns about property theft, censorship and the stain that human rights abuses will leave. I don't know if you've ever tried to setup anything in Ch…

> it seems they've picked a favorite and decided ? It doesn't look like this to me. India's population is within 50 million of China but has double the growth rate. Even if the GDP per capita (nominal or PPP) is about half of that of China, it still has a huge potential as a market and it never received enough attention. Companies are starting to see that potential now. We shouldn't anthropomorphize company decisions…

>India's population is within 50 million of China but has double the growth rate.

What on earth are you talking about? India's growth rate in the past decade is nowhere comparable to China's. Even if you argue that China cooks their books, you cannot discount the volume and value of trade that China does with numerous other countries.

http://statisticstimes.com/economy/china-vs-india-economy.ph...

>it still has a huge potential as a market and it never received enough attention

India has hordes of poorly educated and poor people combined with a minuscule middle class - a definition that is expanded to include people one financial disaster away from poverty. The real market is China, not India, with its growing middle class and easy access to the full spectrum of manufacturing needs combined with a large market.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#186

Post by [deleted] »

frequentnapper wrote: post #24
amrrs wrote: post #3

There's been a recent surge in American companies investing in India primarily through Reliance Jio (owned by Mukhesh Ambani who's got a good connect with the current ruling Government). It's been spiking since the Anti-China sentiment led Buy and Use 'Made in India' cries. Government has even asked eCom Flipkart and Amazon to display Country of Origin for each product. With all these, This investment from Google see…

I don't see how it's not alarming for Indians that one key person/company connected to the govt is the sole beneficiary of incoming businesses into India.

[deleted]

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#187

Post by 16bytes »

totalZero wrote: post #47
fiblye wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India is generally more culturally and politically similar to the west than China. Unless they decide to embark on some unexpected imperialist conquest, I don’t think they’ll have such an active movement to divest from them in the future.

India is so culturally dissimilar to the USA that it's almost laughable to suggest that they are similar. I'm not trying to be adversarial; I just don't see any logical basis -- aside from a few years of anglophone rule -- for your premise.

As one who has traveled to rural India and experienced the culture shock, I can still say that India and the US are more similar than India and China.

The systems of government, economic engines, individualism vs. collectivism are all well-aligned.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#188

Post by enitihas »

intended wrote: post #181
_jgdh wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They'll drop it as soon as something cheaper comes around. My bet - nothing cheaper comes along. Because Reliance's biggest competitive advantage is close links with the government, regardless of the party in power. A hypothetical competitor would find it difficult to get spectrum allocated, have trouble with land usage rights, tax issues like Vodafone had. There is a reason foreign companies set up joint ventures…

Indian telecom is now a classic oligopoly, far from our heady days as one of the most insanely competitive telecom markets.

Ironically, the prices are far lower than they were in those insanely competitive days.

Re: Google to Invest $10B in India

#189

Post by intended »

bamboozled wrote: post #4

Getting the feeling China has blown it and successful companies looking to expand into Asia are now looking at India instead. I also saw that Foxconn is looking to build Apple products in India now too.

This is bunk.

There are 2 forces At play that matter to your position

1) big tech firms investing in a large local player for legal, political connections and arms length sheilding from the necessary local corruption

2) normal manufacturers moving to Vietnam - which has accelerated since the trade war due to COVID.

The second is best described by a New Zealand owner who was looking for factories to build stuff in, aside from China.

India was described as passable, if you Are an MNC. Then you can afford the workers while ensuring quality.

For anyone else, the quality of service from factories drops of fast. There simply isn’t the wherewithal in talent or experience to do manufacturing at scale and at competitive pricing for the typical firm who wants to move manufacturing hubs.

In contrast He had videos of Vietnamese factories working towards throughout targets and being a viable alternative to China.

India needs to reform Labour laws. It’s been a great hope that this govt with its monumental single mandate would have taken the issue and freed the system up so manufacturing could be unshackled.

Post reply on HN