FB's slow growth📉, Zomato CEO transfers Blinkit shares🍅, iPhone sales rise📱
Facebook’s growth is slowing, Zomato’s Goyal transfers his Blinkit shares, Apple makes progress in India, Funding Deals & more.
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Meta says Facebook’s growth is slowing in India, its largest market📉
Meta, which on Thursday reported the first-ever quarter-to-quarter drop in Facebook’s daily active users in its history, is seeing the platform’s growth slow in India too, the company said during an earnings call.
Meta said that user growth in India had slowed down during the quarter partly because of an increase in data costs and partly due to increased competition.
Prices of data plans of Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea rose by up to 25% in the last quarter of 2021.
Globally, Meta blamed Apple's privacy changes and increased competition for users from rivals such as TikTok, which is banned in India, for the drop in its active users.
Zomato’s Deepinder Goyal transfers his Blinkit shares to Tiger Global🤝🏻
Zomato founder and chief executive Deepinder Goyal has transferred all his shares in Blinkit’s parent firm Grofers International Pte. Ltd. to US investment firm Tiger Global.
The share transfer comes as Zomato is ramping up its investment in Blinkit (formerly Grofers), after abandoning its plans to enter the e-grocery segment for a second time since the pandemic hit.
We reported on November 18 last year that Zomato was in talks to invest up to $500 million in Blinkit, marking one of its largest investments ever in a startup. The proposed deal marked an extension of Zomato’s battle with Swiggy into the so-called ultrafast commerce segment.
Swiggy also recently allocated $700 million to grow its quick commerce vertical, Instamart.
Hot Shorts⚡
Jar, a startup for daily savings, has raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by New York-based investment firm Tiger Global.
Leading multi-family office and wealth advisory Waterfield Advisors has raised $6 million (about Rs 44.9 crore) in series B funding from high net-worth individuals and existing investors.
Proptech startup POPT has raised $2 million mainly from Canada-based angel investors MRW Ventures and Riar Holdings.
Scrut Automation, an information security compliance platform, has raised $3 million from Lightspeed and Endiya Partners.
Apple makes progress in India as iPhone sales rise 34%☺
Apple had its strongest quarter for iPhone sales in India yet, a sign the company is making progress in the world’s fastest-growing smartphone market.
Sales increased to 2.3 million units in the fourth quarter, up 34% from a year earlier, according to numbers from the market research firm Counterpoint. Xiaomi and Samsung Electronics Co. sold 9.3 million and 7.2 million smartphones for the quarter respectively, leading in terms of units.
Apple appears to have pulled in more revenue than any of its rivals, however, because of the iPhone’s high price tag, according to Counterpoint’s calculations. The US company took in an estimated $2.09 billion for the quarter, edging aside Samsung with revenue of about $2 billion.
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