PhonePe, Paytm get aggressive for gold; Xiaomi occupies a third of India’s smartphone market

Payments company PhonePe said it sold over 250 kg 24K gold on its platform since the launch of the product in December. Competitor Paytm, which launched its gold offering in July last year, claimed that by mid-April, it had recorded gold transactions worth around 80,000 tolas (approximately 800 kg) spanning 1.5 million customers. The Noida-based company claimed customers had bought 2,000 tolas of gold (approximately 20 kg) online on Akshaya Tritiya. PhonePe, on the other hand, claims Akshaya Tritiya sales of over 45 kg gold worth over Rs 15 crore.

A joint study by industry body Nasscom and Bengaluru-based market research firm Infoholic was conducted among industry and academic experts of over 75 popular engineering institutes to understand if industry-academia convergence can build a better entrepreneurship ecosystem. According to the study, 78 percent of the surveyed universities agree that industry-academia convergence will lead to a better entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Xiaomi has emerged as India’s leading smartphone brand for the third successive quarter. The Chinese handset-maker now owns over 30 percent of the domestic market, ahead of one-time leader Samsung. The latter’s share now stands at 25 percent.

Google has announced it is revamping its paid cloud storage options for consumers and relaunching them as a new service called Google One. The new service, which will be rolled out first in the US and then across the rest of the world in the coming months, will offer users a variety of payment options for different storage plans, from $1.99/month for 100 GB to $299.99/month for 30 TB. The service also comes with two new features – live 24/7 support from Google Experts and the option to share the storage plan with up to five family members.

In a major change to its legal policy, ridesharing giant Uber announced victims of sexual assault and harassment on Uber services in the US will no longer have to resort to just arbitration to resolve their complaints. Under the new policy, Uber riders, drivers, and employees will be able to choose the legal recourse they want to pursue in such cases – mediation, arbitration, or open court – but other complaints like gender and pay discrimination will still be subject to arbitration.

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