How big is India’s Travel & Tourism Industry?

About 1000 years ago, India was known for its hospitality and prosperity. The country was a major attraction for outsiders due to its diverse culture, spices, education system, excellent economy, silk, cotton, opium, amazing art and, of course, architecture. Jump to now – India attracts millions of travellers from all over the world around the year and is one of the most visited countries by foreigners.

India’s travel and tourism industry has grown remarkably in the last few decades thanks to the campaigns like “Incredible India”. The exciting and informative campaign represented India as an attractive tourist destination by showcasing its natural beauty, cultural heritage and historic sites. Along with international tourists and travellers, many domestic tourists and travellers travel across India.

Why India?

Well, why not? The country boasts a rich heritage and has everything a tourist could ask for; from the vibrant cities, the snow-capped Himalayas and tropical beachside towns to the peaceful countryside, it perfectly combines the traditional and modern world. The country might appear religious and heritage-driven from an outsider’s perspective, but once you are here, you’ll understand it’s completely different from what is written in books.

The country has various versions, and it entirely depends on which place you are visiting. In some places, you will witness the holy and serene side of the country, while in some, noisy and loud. The diverse culture of the country will make you think twice about everything, as, after every 50 to 60 kilometres, you will notice language changes, people eating differently, and of course, changes in their day-to-day attire.

The country has been offering best-in-class hospitality for ages, and that’s the significant reason travellers look forward to it every time they visit India. Along with foreigners, even domestic tourists and travellers feel surprised when they visit other states besides the state they live in, thanks to the diverse culture. The country is easy to get around and well connected by road, rail, and air networks from across the globe.

Top 5 most visited places in India

Delhi

Yup, the capital strikes again. The city has not lost a single point in popularity over the last few centuries. The capital city of India is the most visited place in the country and offers a composed mixture of culture, art and modern architecture. The city has various historical places like India Gate, Lotus Temple, Red Fort, Chandni Chowk, Jama Masjid, Qutub Minar, Connaught Place, and Humayun’s Tomb.

Agra

Agra needs no introduction, as the city is home to the world’s most beautiful monument Taj Mahal, which is also one of the seven wonders of the world. A trip to Agra is incomplete if you haven’t Soak in the Beauty of the Taj Mahal during the sunrise or sunset. The city is also famous for other monuments like Fatehpur Sikri, Jahangir Mahal, Jama Masjid, Agra Fort, Akbar’s tomb, Ram Bagh and Sikandra Fort.

Jaipur

The capital of Rajasthan, Jaipur, is commonly called the pink city due to its trademark building colour. The city has various tourist attractions – mahals (buildings) like Hawa Mahal, Jal Mahal, City Palace, Sisodia Rani Palace and forts like Nahargarh Fort, Jaigarh Fort, and Amber Fort, which were constructed by the then-royal family who once ruled the region. One should not miss Jaipur if you’re a fan of Mughal-influenced Rajput architecture.

Varanasi

The spiritual capital of the country is one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. The ultimate pilgrimage spot for Hindus portrays the weird side of India and is always packed with a massive number of travellers. The city is known for its ghats, alleys and streets, which have numerous types of temples. Ganga Aarti at Dashashwamedh Ghat, New Vishwanath Temple, Kashi Vishwanath Temple, Sarnath, and Manikarnika Ghat are the must-see places in Varanasi.

Ladakh

Ladakh is home to one of the purest remaining examples of Tibetan Buddhist culture, and in popular culture, it is known as the roof of the world. The place is enclosed between the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, which is why every biker and trekker adds Ladakh to their bucket list. The site brings tourists closer to raw and untouched nature, allowing tourists and travellers to have an unforgettable vacation.

The UNESCO Connection

Another reason India is one of the favourite tourist spots is that it has over 40 World Heritage Sites recognised by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Out of these, 32 sites are cultural, 7 sites are natural, and one, the Khangchendzonga National Park, is of mixed type.

Types of tourism in India

Earlier, people used to prefer to stay at home during holidays or, in some cases, they used to pay a visit to the nearest pilgrimage sites. Over the last 10-15 years, the definition of tourism and travel has completely changed, as many people started travelling across the country and utilising the best during their vacays.

Skip the pandemic years, and you’ll notice the tourism and travelling industry has become one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world. The Ministry of Tourism in India aims to develop the country as the finest tourist destination worldwide. The ministry has identified and divided many niche products to attract tourists as per state attractions.

Adventure Tourism

The percentage of young travellers is increasing day by day, and we know what their adrenaline rush wants to do when they are looking for a vacation. Yes, Adventure! India is one of the world’s most diverse topographical countries and has many places where one can have a thrilling, adventurous trip. Skydiving, Wildlife Safari, MotorBike Expeditions, Scuba diving, Kayaking, Trekking, Waterfall Rappelling, and Paragliding are a few of the top activities to do in India.

Eco-Tourism

Seeing mother nature in its own form will help you understand the world we’re living in is beautiful beyond our fantasies. Ecotourism is a sustainable form of tourism that allows the tourist to see the purest form of Mother Nature. India is a land full of natural beauty, and there are many ways to enjoy nature. The country has snowy mountains in the Himalayas, and North-East India, bustling beaches in Goa, backwaters in Kerala, and, of course, Thar – the Great Indian Desert.

Cultural or Heritage Tourism

We’ve already mentioned India has over 40 World Heritage Sites recognised by UNESCO. The country is enriched with hundreds of heritage sites which showcase the art and architecture of the mixed dynasties who ruled the land. The major cultural or heritage sites include the Taj Mahal, Khajuraho Group of Monuments, Chittorgarh Fort, Red Fort, Hampi Vijayanagara Empire, Mumbai – the city of dreams and Ajanta Ellora Caves.

Religious or Pilgrimage Tourism

Being a country that gets very sentimental when it comes to religion has definitely helped the government to grow in the travel & tourism industry. Every year millions of people from India travel to famous and popular temples, mosques, gurdwaras, churches, and monasteries. Religious places like Kedarnath, Badrinath, Velankanni Church, Varanasi, Golden Temple, Dargah Gharib Nawaz in Ajmer and Vaishno Devi Temple.

Dark Tourism

Being a country ruled and attacked by many outsiders and, of course, terrorists, we have many dark places in the country. However, instead of being sad about the memories, we’ve turned them into tourist places to show the world how strong we are as a nation. The complex history of India is connected with the places that have experienced death, pain, and mystery. It might be deadly and scary to visit dark places like Jallianwala Bagh, Cellular Jail (Kala Pani), Skeleton Lake, Taj Palace Hotel (Mumbai) and Leopold Cafe (Mumbai), but only these places make us strong and keep us united.

Valuation

As a favourable country for international and domestic travellers, India’s travel and tourism industry contributed about 5.8% to the total economy ~ about ₹13,161 billion in 2021. The figures dropped due to the pandemic; otherwise, the travel and tourism industry of India would have surpassed its 2019 record and earned over ₹16,000 billion.

How Big is IPL?

The game of cricket has the power to unite people, at least in our country. We have been worshipping cricketers for a long time, and looking at the current craze of the game, we will continue to do so in the future. A huge credit for the same goes to the IPL – Indian Premier League, which turned the gentleman’s game into a spine chilling thriller.

Yesterday, Gujarat Titans, a debutant team, defeated Rajasthan Royals by 7 wickets and 11 balls left in the final of IPL 2022. A team led by young captain Hardik Pandya was not one of the favourites at the start of the season, but throughout the last couple of months, they stood strong as a team and performed like true champions.

A quick look into the old books

In the early months of 2007, a private cricket league – ICL (Indian Cricket League), was founded, which was not controlled by the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) or ICC (Indian Cricket Council). The cricket board of India wasn’t happy with it, and to prevent players from joining the ICL, the BCCI increased the prize money in the domestic tournaments but failed to fulfill the greed.

Going ahead, the board even started imposing lifetime bans on players joining the ICL but couldn’t keep the players away from it. The same year, in September 2007, India won the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup by thrillingly beating the arch-rival Pakistan. Shortly, the BCCI announced a franchise-based T20 cricket league named Indian Premier League in a high-profile ceremony.

The MASTERMIND behind the league

Even before Mr Narendra Modi led BJP came into the rule in the central, there was another MODI who was famous for his tactics and strategies, the ex-vice president of BCCI, Mr Lalit Modi. He was heavily involved in the commercial side of the BCCI and was instrumental in launching the IPL. The guy singlehandedly operated the league and played an unforgivable inning to make IPL a global sports event.

However, not all good things end well, and in 2010, the IPL mastermind was suspended from the post of chairman and commissioner. The BCCI’s disciplinary committee found him guilty on eight counts, and soon he was labelled as a fraudster, but that’s a story for another day. To be honest, nobody can do half of what he did for the IPL during his tenure, of course, skipping the bad parts.

The Format of the IPL

In the first three seasons of the IPL, matches were planned according to the round-robin format where each contestant meets every other participant, usually in turn. Later on, in 2011, two new teams were introduced, and a new structure was formed where 10 teams were divided into two virtual groups, and each team played 14 games before hitting the playoffs.

The format of the IPL keeps changing according to the number of teams. This year, in the 15th season of the league, once again, two new teams were introduced – Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants. Due to the apprehension of the 4th wave (Covid-19), the 15th season was played entirely in the state of Maharashtra (except the final match), with Mumbai and Pune hosting the matches.

Top 3 recently added technologies in the IPL

Measuring the speed of players while running between the wickets

A player can not hit the ball out of the park at all times. When required and under pressure, they sometimes need to run quickly between the wickets to snatch that one impossible single. MS Dhoni, AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli have mastered this art long ago but nobody was aware at what speed they run between the wickets till Star Sports Network introduced new technology in the IPL 2021.

The matrix of catch conversions

We’re aware of the technology that shows us keen details of the batting and bowling, but what about fielding? The matrix system helps us summarize how many catches a fielder takes and drops and how many runs a player saves and gives both inside the 30-yard circle and the outfield. The matrix also evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of a team based on fielding performances.

Fake crowds and cheers

Imagine a sports match without an audience? I know it’s hard to digest, especially when you’re into a sports-like cricket, where the audience plays a huge role by cheering for the players. However, due to the pandemic, the 13th season of the IPL kicked off with fake crowds and cheers. Unfortunately, the fans watching matches from their homes were not happy about the counterfeit cheers, but who cares!

The concept of Strategic Timeout

Now that we’ve reached almost half of the article, it’s time to take a timeout. The concept of strategic timeouts is similar in concept to timeouts in basketball. It was first introduced during the second season of the IPL (in 2009) and lasted for seven and a half minutes. However, they were shortened to two and a half minutes a year later due to their unpopularity.

Of course, they kill the momentum of the game, but according to the franchise owners, timeouts are crucial as they maintain commercial revenue streams in the league. At the moment, strategic timeouts are only exclusive to the IPL, where the bowling team must take the timeout between six and eight overs while the batting team must take it during 11 and 16 overs.

Valuation

Indian Premier League is one of the top-most and richest sports leagues in the world. If you focus on the growth rate, the IPL clubs have seen 24% growth over a decade. The total value of the IPL after the 14th season (2021) has been around ₹ 35950.53 crores. The league features 100+ sponsors in just one edition, be it a title sponsor, umpiring sponsor or tens of brands we see on the team jerseys.

Brand Value of the Teams

5-time champions Mumbai Indians is the most successful team in the Indian Premier League, but when it comes to the fan following and the brand value, 4-time winner Chennai Super Kings tops the list. The ‘yellove’ fans have been attached to the Chennai team for a long, and most of the credit goes to the rapport between the management, team players, staff and fanbase.

Team	Owned by	Value
Chennai Super Kings	India Cements	₹2,700 crores
Mumbai Indians	Reliance Industries Limited	₹2,500 crore
Kolkata Knight Riders	Red Chillies Entertainment and Mehta Group	₹543 crore
Royal Challengers Bangalore	United Spirits Limited	₹536 crore
Sunrisers Hyderabad	Sun TV Network	₹442 crore
Delhi Capitals	GMR Group and JSW Group	₹370 crore
Punjab Kings	Mohit Burman, Ness Wadia, Preity Zinta, and Karan Paul	₹318 crore
Rajasthan Royals	Manoj Badale, Lachlan Murdoch	₹249 crore

Note: The brand value of the newly launched teams – Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Supergiants, will be evaluated after IPL 2022.

How Big is Twitter?

Twitter has always been a highly active social media forum where a single tweet can create a conversational conflict across the globe. The microblogging platform was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006, which means soon it will turn 16. Since then, the platform has emerged well, from allowing people to speak their hearts out to coming up with the breaking news before news stations. Over the past few years, the revenue of the ‘diary platform’ has skyrocketed, and it will only fly up in the future, thanks to the digital revolution.

Recently, when Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, announced his surprising move of stepping down from the position of chief executive officer, and Parag Agrawal took over his CEO position, everyone was in awe. The day Jack Dorsey announced his replacement, Twitter India flooded with thousands of memes on “Agrawal ji ka beta”, which shows how pleased Indians were after the announcement. The selection of an Indian-origin Parag Agrawal as CEO of Twitter creates a buzz in the social media circuit, causing us to pick Twitter for our How Big is feature.

How was Twitter Formed?

Evan Williams teamed up with his neighbour Noah Glass for a business venture and started working on a podcasting platform, Odeo. Later on, Williams convinced one of his Google co-workers and friend Biz Stone to join the team. Along the way, Engineer Jack Dorsey joined the trio and became part of the Odeo team. Unfortunately (at least for the Odeo team), in June 2005, Apple announced that they would include podcasting in one of the popular services, iTunes, cursing Odeo’s chances for success.

The announcement shook the management team of the Odeo, and Evan Williams told his Odeo employees to put their everyday tasks at Odeo on hold and work on whatever side projects they had. The results were outstanding, but the idea that Jack Dorsey tossed was the strongest one, and the management trio decided to go with it. A lot more happened in between, such as Williams firing Glass due to increased workplace tension, acquiring the majority of assets from Odeo’s investors and shareholders and then finally, in March 2007, the completed version of Twitter debuted and won the best startup honour at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin, Texas.

The Birth of the name ‘Twitter’

Every project starts with an idea, followed by a name, which identifies the brand. The original project code name was twttr, and then the founders of the company, mainly Noah Glass, came across the word Twitter for the first time and decided to go with it as it means “a short burst of inconsequential information” and “chirps from birds,” which sounds perfect for the platform. Initially, it was referred to as a social network as well as microblogging because it didn’t replace anything, but in a brief span, it became a popular social media network in the world with over 330 million daily active users.

The First-ever Tweet

Twitter co-founder typed out a simple yet effective message, “just setting up my twttr”, and posted it on Twitter. The message became the first-ever tweet, and after 15 years, it has gained over 172k likes and received over 121k retweets.

The Initial Years of the Twitter

In April 2007, Twitter became an independent company, and Twitter, Inc. was created as a corporate entity. Due to the Interactive conference at South By Southwest, Twitter gained humongous popularity, with about 60,000 tweets being sent on the day of the event. The prominent events such as election polls, FIFA World Cup, NBA Finals played a crucial role in the growth of Twitter, especially during its initial phase.

The platform was made for sharing thoughts, daily life ventures, and comprehending what people were doing based on their status updates. The company experienced rapid growth initially, from over 4,00,000 tweets per quarter in 2007 to a whopping 100 million tweets per quarter in 2008. The company moved up to the third-highest-ranking social networking site in January 2009.

The New Twitter

The company upped its game and rolled out an entirely revamped edition of twitter.com in 2011, often referred to as New Twitter in popular culture and also considered Twitter’s first big move in terms of redesigning. It features a complete overhaul of the interface and allows users to see pictures and videos, from a variety of supported websites, including Flickr and YouTube, without leaving the Twitter app website.

The new Twitter was formed to make money through promoted tweets, accounts, and trends as many brands were ready to pay considerable amounts to show their tweets at the top of search results pages. The new Twitter also introduced features like related content and mini-profiles. In late 2011, Twitter overhauled its website again to feature the Fly design, which was easier to understand, even for the new users.

Twitter Algorithm

Over the years, Twitter has established itself as a platform where brands can express themselves willingly, and that’s a selling point of the platform. The Twitter algorithm was introduced in 2016, allowing users to track tweets based on relevancy and popularity. The algorithm was criticized by many people when it underwent a significant overhaul in 2017 where it replaced the feature “while you’ve been away” with “in case you missed it.” The change is not taken lightly by Twitter users, and that’s why in 2018, Twitter allowed users an option to choose between an algorithm organized feed and a regular feed.

Twitter Valuation

Twitter ranks among the most prominent social networks worldwide, with over 330 million monthly active users. The company is funded by 36 investors, and as of January 2022, it has acquired 67 organizations. Twitter is a public, real-time, global platform, and as of 1st January 2022, its net worth is $34.37 billion.

How Big is Honda?

Being an Indian, we all know Honda mainly because of their joint venture with Hero MotoCorp Limited, which started in 1984 as Hero Honda Motors Limited and was terminated by December 2010. Though the Minato, Tokyo, headquartered Japanese company separated itself from Hero MotoCorp Limited, it successfully maintained its business in the country by launching different automobiles and motorcycles.

How Does Honda Begin its Journey?

The engineer and automobile fanatic Soichiro Honda took over an old factory that mainly couched in ruins from wartime bombings in 1946 and founded Honda Technical Research Institute in Hamamatsu, Japan. In a tiny space of 170 sq ft. and with only 12 employees, he built small, efficient internal combustion engines and sold customised bicycles with attached motors. Since childhood, Soichiro was a dreamer and interested in automobiles, and to fulfill his passion, he started working as a mechanic during his youth at the Art Shokai garage, where he tuned cars and entered them into races using his friend’s garage.

The Honda Technical Research Institute was incorporated as Honda Motor Company in 1948 and commenced producing motorcycles in 1949. Soon, the newly founded Honda hired a marketing specialist Takeo Fujisawa, who provided requisite business and marketing expertise to complement Soichiro Honda’s technical propensity. Soichiro Honda and Takeo Fujisawa co-founded Honda Motor Co., Ltd, where Soichiro controlled the engineering and product development while Takeo managed the financial side of the company. The hardworking duo took the company from a small manufacturer of bicycle engines to a worldwide car manufacturer.

How Does Honda Shot to Fame in the World?

Honda shot to fame within a decade of its establishment and became the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer. Thanks to the Honda C-100, a small-engine motorcycle introduced in 1953, and by 1959, it was the largest-selling motorcycle in the world. Since its foundation, the company has manufactured over 400 million motorcycles and has produced more than 14 million internal combustion engines each year, earning the position of the world’s largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume. The company began manufacturing automobiles in 1963, and the first automobile from Honda was the T360 mini pick-up truck.

The Concept of a “People’s Car”

A four-seater with a top speed of 100 km/h and an affordable price was the summary of the concept of building people’s car in the early ’60s. Honda followed the outline and unveiled the Honda S360 sports car, on June 5, 1962, during the 11th National Honda Meeting General Assembly held at Suzuka Circuit. Later on, the company launched its first production car and first passenger automobile, the Honda S500 sports car, which entered production in October 1963.

Further growth in the Automobile world

Honda Motor Company established a United States subsidiary, the American Honda Motor Company, for manufacturing motorcycles and automobiles in the United States. In 2001, Honda became the second-largest Japanese automobile manufacturer after Toyota, a major car manufacturing company that bought Soichiro Honda’s highly automated product in 1941 to utilise unskilled workers to produce high-quality piston rings. According to the OICA report, in 2017, Honda was the 7th largest automobile manufacturer in the world.

Honda in India

Outside the Japanese boundaries, Honda is known for its joint ventures, especially in India, where it partnered with Hero Group and started its operations in 1984 by forming the joint venture Hero Honda Motors Limited. Hero Honda launched a four-stroke bike with a popular advertising campaign based on the tag line- “Fill it, Shut it, Forget it”. The campaign did a miracle for the new joint venture, and the newly formed brand took the market by storm.

The Hero Honda Splendor and Hero Honda Passion were two of the best-selling motorcycles from the brand, which worked brilliantly in Indian conditions and were best suited for the Indian psyche. In 2001, the joint venture became the second largest two-wheeler manufacturing company in India and globally but unfortunately, in December 2010, the board of directors of Hero Honda Motors Limited had decided to terminate the joint venture due to rising differences between the two partners.

After termination, both the companies started operating differently and soon became rivals. Hero Group renamed the company from Hero Honda Motors Limited to Hero MotoCorp Limited on 29 July 2011 and began exporting their motorcycles to Latin America, Africa and West Asia. Currently, Hero MotoCorp Limited is the largest two-wheeler manufacturer in India and even globally, but during the joint venture times, Hero Group mainly relied on their Japanese counterpart Honda for the technology in their bikes.

Besides motorcycles, Honda also has a division of Automobiles in India, Honda Cars India Ltd. (HCIL), which was established in 1995 as a joint venture called Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI). The automobile division’s first manufacturing plant in Greater Noida started operations in 1997 and manufactures about 100,000 units annually. The second plant in India is at Tapukara in the Alwar District of Rajasthan, spread over 450 acres of land. The Japanese carmaker has 371 dealership outlets across 121 cities in 20 states and 3 Union Territories in India. The current models are Honda City, Honda Jazz, Honda Amaze and Honda WR-V, while the discontinued models are Honda Accord, Honda Civic, Honda CR-V, Honda Brio, Honda Mobilio and Honda BR-V.

Honda Marketing Strategies

Every good company focuses on its marketing strategies as it helps the brand create products and services with the best chances for making a profit, and over the several decades, Honda had some fantastic marketing and advertising campaigns, be it a Honda Accord campaign with a tagline, “Isn’t it nice when things just… work?” or a humour-based commercial where a casual-looking man knocks on a TV screen and says, “I’m Mr. Opportunity, and I’m knockin,” Honda had done it all. Besides strategic marketing and advertising of their major products, Honda sells genuine accessories through a separate retail chain called Honda Access for their motorcycle, scooter, and automobile products, which helps the company gain more profits.

3 Unique Things About Honda Cars

Resale Value

Indian buyers usually examine the fuel efficiency & resale value while purchasing a new car, and Honda has a lot to offer in these two sections. Honda cars have a tremendous resale market due to their high reliability, and a well-maintained Honda car can make up to 60-70% of the original value, or at least 50% as a minimum.

Features & Safety

Japanese and German automobile technology is always a step ahead of the world. Being a Japanese automobile manufacturer, Honda never disappoints us with advanced tech and always provides reliable features at an affordable price. About safety, it is one of the essential factors and cannot be ignored. Honda cars pay full attention and effort to make every car safe, and most of their cars have a 4-5 star NCAP test rating.

VTEC Engines

VTEC is a system developed and introduced by Honda back in 1989 to improve the volumetric efficiency of a four-stroke internal combustion engine. It stands for Variable Timing & Lift Electronic Control and provides outstanding driving dynamics that helps the car to dance at the user’s fingertips. The Indian Honda’s get i-VTEC, which offers more fuel efficiency, allows users to endure the world of rising fuel prices.

Leaving Blue Skies for Our Children

Honda is committed to proactive environmental conservation activities and had set a target in 2011 to slice CO2 emissions from its global products by 30 per cent by the end of 2020, and they’ve achieved it successfully. The Slogan’ Blue Skies for Our Children’ expresses the company’s proactive commitment to improving the environment worldwide. Driven by the rallying cry of “blue skies for our children,” Honda engineers created a groundbreaking CVCC engine that made the Honda Civic the first vehicle to meet the strict emissions standards of the new United States Clean Air Act without using a catalytic converter.

Top 5 Honda Divisions & A Few Interesting Facts About Honda

Honda established itself as one of the topmost manufacturers of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment globally. The Japanese company also manufactures garden equipment, marine engines, personal watercraft, power generators, robots and mountain bikes. Let’s take a look at the top 5 Honda divisions.

Honda Motorcycles

Honda has come a long way from manufacturing noisy scooters to making the finest cars on the planet, but people will always remember the company for its motorcycle division. Since 1955, Honda has been the largest motorcycle manufacturer in Japan and one of the topmost motorcycle manufacturers globally. Honda started venturing outside the Japanese motorcycle market in the ’60s and began exporting their motorcycles to the United States.

Along with Robert Emmenegger, creative director, Grey Advertising, the company created an innovative 12-year-long advertising campaign, “You meet the nicest people on a Honda”, and it became hugely successful, helping the company to sell over 90,000 motorcycles. The campaign marked the inception of the decay of domestic and British motorcycle brands in the US market and helped Honda to rise as a top motorcycle manufacturer.

Honda Automobiles

After Honda Motorcycles, a large sum of the company’s annual sales came from Honda Automobiles, which the company began manufacturing in 1963. The first car from Honda was the S500 sports car, which had chain-driven rear wheels. Over the next few decades, the company expanded their range of vehicles and exported its automobiles to the United States and other parts of the world.

In 1986, the company ventured into the luxury car segment and became the first Japanese automobile manufacturer to release a dedicated luxury brand- Acura. Soon, the company released the wildly successful Acura brand to the American market to gain ground in the luxury vehicle market. Since its inception, Honda has produced several prosperous cars, including the Honda Accord, Honda Civic, and Honda City.

Honda Engines

Honda Motor Co., Ltd. is the world’s largest engine manufacturer that sets the standard for reliable and hard-working engines. When it comes to making engines, Honda focuses on better fuel efficiency, higher power output, superior and quieter performance. Honda engines are built with high-quality elements designed for optimum performance in the harshest environments. Honda engines are renowned for being easy to start but, despite being known as an engine company, Honda has never built a V8 for passenger vehicles. Honda engines powered the entire 33-car starting field of the 94th Indianapolis 500, held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana, in 2010.

Honda Robots

Being a motorcycle and automobile manufacturing expert, Honda has always shown interest in Robotics. Since 1986, the company has been involved with artificial intelligence/robotics research. The Japanese company developed its first humanoid robot in 1986 and named it the Honda E series. The E series was a collection of experimental humanoid robots made by Honda between 1986 and 1993.

The series later evolved into the Honda P series and helped Honda gather the knowledge and expertise necessary to create Honda’s advanced humanoid robot: ASIMO, which the company released in 2000. ASIMO was the world’s most advanced humanoid robot of its time, and even today, it is the world’s only humanoid robot able to ascend and descend stairs independently.

Honda Aircraft Company

Honda Aircraft Company is an aircraft manufacturing company founded as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Honda Motor Company in August 2006. The aircraft division of Honda has pioneered new technology in its HA-420 HondaJet and is responsible for producing the HondaJet family of aircraft. Honda Aircraft Company builds aircraft with the latest innovations in aviation to change the way we travel.

The company has introduced several innovations and cutting edge technology in general aviation aircraft, including an over-wing engine mount, carbon composite fuselage and natural laminar flow wings. In late 2003, an experimental HondaJet equipped with Honda HF118 engines completed its initial flight test, and in 2005, the aircraft division made its world debut for the public. Since 2017, the HondaJet has been the most delivered aircraft in its class, earning the accomplishment for the fourth consecutive year.

Did You Know?

As of October 2021, Honda’s market capitalization was valued at over $52 billion.
The Honda Accord was the first foreign vehicle manufactured in the United States.
Honda has its airport.
The Honda Gold Wing motorcycle has been in production for over 40 years.
The Honda Civic was Honda’s answer to the ’70s Fuel Crisis; the car is still one of the best value and fuel-efficient options on the market.
Honda made the first four-wheel-drive car, the 1987 Honda Prelude.
Honda’s logo is the most conservative one as it has remained unchanged in its entire history.
Every Honda CR-V manufactured from 1997 to 2006 had a picnic table under the cargo area.

How Big is Wipro?

We have covered How Big is Sony, Netflix, Walmart and Nike? in the past few months, and so far, we’ve experienced a pleasant ride. Then, one fine day we thought, let’s do something different this time as all of the companies we have covered till now have been situated in foreign lands, and this simple thought provoked us to shift our focus from foreign companies to our Indian giants. The search began, and we started looking for Indian companies that contributed remarkably to our country’s growth, and at the end of the day, we mutually decided to go with Wipro, India’s third-largest outsourcer of IT services.

How was Wipro started?

Wipro is a widespread name in Indian households as the majority of Indians prefer to use electrical products and an energy-efficient range of LED lighting solutions manufactured by Wipro, but many of us aren’t even aware of the now popular multinational corporation that provides information technology, consulting and business process services was initially started as a maker of vegetable and refined oils in Amalner, Maharashtra. Though you can always ask your grandparents, they might be aware of the trade names of Kisan, Sunflower, Dalda Ghee, and Camel, popular products of the company during their early days.

The company was founded in 1945 as Western Indian Vegetable Products Ltd. by Mr Mohamed Premji, and later on, it was inherited by his then 21-year old son, Azim Premji. In 1966, the latter was pursuing electrical engineering at Stanford University in the United States, but due to his father’s sudden demise, he returned to India and became the company’s chairperson at the bare age of 21. Mr Azim Premji officially renamed the company to Wipro Products Limited in 1977, when he took over the family-owned business and expanded the company’s product line to include hydraulic cylinders, bakery fats, toiletries, soaps, and lighting products.

How Wipro entered into the IT sector and expanded its other ventures?

The chairperson of Wipro Products Limited, Mr Azim Premji, was a visionary man and always wanted to do something in the IT and computing industry, and when the opportunity knocked at the door, he tucked it in. Wipro gradually started entering into the IT business in the late ’70s, and at that time, IBM India was at its pinnacle and was the biggest competitor for newbie Wipro. Many business groups in the country called Wipro’s move a foolish one but to the company’s luck and the arrival of a new government with fresh foreign exchange rules, in 1978, IBM India shut its operations and withdrew its services from the country, which helped Wipro advance its services in the field and ripe the opportunity.

Wipro commenced its IT sector journey by producing microcomputers under a technology-sharing agreement with US-based Sentinel Computer Corporation, and within a decade, it became the first Indian company to explore offshore IT services. In between this, Wipro once again updated its name from Wipro Products Limited to Wipro Limited in 1982, added mobile hydraulic cylinders and heavy-duty industrial cylinders to its line of products in 1988, formed a joint venture called Wipro GE Medical Systems with the United States’ General Electric (GE) for the manufacture, sales, and service of diagnostic and imaging products and started making one Santoor talcum powder and Wipro Baby Soft, a range of baby toiletries in 1990.

Further Growth & Collaborations

The economic liberalisation in India during the early ’90s led to an increase in foreign investment and high economic growth. The movement helped our country grow its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from $266 billion in 1991 to $3.3 trillion in 2021. Thanks to economic liberalisation, Wipro further expanded into manufacturing lamps, oil-based natural ingredients, beauty care products, medical and diagnostic equipment, and IT hardware products such as printers and scanners.

In 1999, Wipro became the only Indian computer manufacturer to obtain the complete Y2K compliant certification from the United States’ National Software Testing Laboratory. In the next couple of years, Wipro continued to perform strongly, with IT remaining its core industry. They also collaborated with Acer to produce personal computers for the Indian market and soon arose as one of India’s largest software exporters and the second-largest listed company in the country.

Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, who’s informally known as the Czar of the Indian IT Industry, is currently the 13th richest Indian, but from 1998 to 2003, he stayed as the richest Indian. Wipro enjoyed a tremendous level of prosperity throughout the late ’90s and early 2000s. They started internet service in India by partnering with KPN (Royal Dutch telecom) to form a joint venture company, Wipro Net Limited and also opened a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) unit in 2002. In the five years where Azim Premji stayed on the top position of richest Indian, Wipro performed historically on the Indian stock exchanges. In the following years, Wipro also became one of the first software companies to get SEI (Software Engineering Institute) Level 5 certification.

Wipro Acquisitions

Currently, Wipro is headquartered in Bengaluru and is known for its array of services such as IT sector, BPO services, cognitive computing, robotics, hyper-automation, testing, research and development in the software and hardware areas of companies around the world. The Indian multinational corporation Wipro was ranked 1st in the 2010 Asian Sustainability Rating (ASR) of Indian companies. The company even offers its services to several enterprises like Finance, Utilities, Energy and Entertainment. Under Azim Premji’s bold leadership, Wipro tasted more success rather than failures and emerged dramatically as one of the leading IT companies not only in India but all over the globe.

Wipro acquired more than 15 companies till now and has spent over $2.5 billion on acquisitions. Wipro acquired Chandrika, an ayurvedic and herbal soap brand in 2004, Northwest Switches and Sweden-based Hydrauto Group AB in 2006 for Rs. 102.2 crore and Rs. 142.6 crore, Infocrossing in August 2007 for Rs. 2,430 crores, Singapore-based Unza Holdings Ltd. in 2007 for Rs. 1,010 crores, the personal care brand Yardley from the Lornamead Group in 2009, Appirio, an information technology consulting company for Rs 3,300 crore in 2016, Florida-based HealthPlan Services for $460 (over Rs. 3100 crores) million in 2016 and tied up with Israel Aerospace Industries to manufacture composite aerostructure parts and assemblies in 2017.

Top 5 Wipro Subsidiaries

Wipro Infrastructure Engineering

Wipro Infrastructure Engineering was established in 1976 as a part of Wipro, and it is one of the principal subsidiaries of Wipro. It is the hydraulics business section of the company and has been into manufacturing hydraulic cylinders, cargo handling, mining, freight, truck cylinders, and their components. The subsidiary has delivered over a million cylinders to original equipment manufacturers across the globe. The division also launched specific solutions during the pandemic to fight against Covid 19.

Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting

Wipro Consumer Care and Lighting (WCCLG) was established as a division of Wipro in 1945 to cater for the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) segment dealing personal care, home care, lighting and furniture products. The first manufactured product by the subsidiary was Sunflower Vanaspati oil. The firm has ventured into selling personal care products like Santoor, Chandrika, Aramusk, Wipro Baby Soft ranges and Yardley, along with lighting products like Smartlite CFL and LED lights. The division is one of the fastest-growing in Asia, and Africa, with more than 75 crores sales revenue in 2019-20.

Yardley

Yardley or Yardley of London is a British personal care brand established by the Cleaver family in 1770. The brand is specialized in cosmetics, fragrances and relevant toiletry products. It is one of the oldest firms globally and one of the biggest manufacturers of soap and perfumes. Wipro consumer care brought Yardley in 2009 except for businesses in Germany and Austria, where it is still owned by Lornamead, a part of Hong Kong’s Fung Group.

Opus Capital Markets Consultants

Headquartered in Lincolnshire in Illinois, United States, Opus is one of the top companies in the financial services industry, and since 2013, it has been owned by Wipro. Opus Capital Markets Consultants offers multiple services like Residential & commercial mortgage, Compliances services, servicing reviews, advisory services, quality control, servicing oversight and operational assessment. Recently, it has been fully integrated with Wipro and renamed as Wipro Opus Risk Solutions LLC.

Topcoder & Appirio

Topcoder is a crowdsourcing company that pays community members for their projects and sells community services to corporate, mid-size, and small-business clients. The company was founded by Jack Hughes in the year 2001, and its name was formerly spelt as “TopCoder” until 2013. Wipro acquired Topcoder in 2016 along with Appirio, an information technology consulting company founded by Chris Barbin, Narinder Singh, Glenn Weinstein and Mike O Brien. Appirio competes with Accenture and Deloitte in the business by offering SaaS services such as Salesforce and Google apps.

Logo Evolution

Wipro introduced its first logo in 1998; the logo features a very detailed sunflower diagonally coloured into 7 colours of the rainbow, placed above the sleek and stylized wordmark with a tagline, “Applying Thought,” and enclosed into a thin blue circular structure. Later on, after two decades, in 2017, the company revamped its old logo with a new logo, comprising of dots that represent the way the company ‘connects the dots’ for its clients. Wipro removed the colourful sunflower and changed the wordmark from the capitalized inscription to a lowercase one. The new logo features four different sized circles formed by dots representing growth and progress.

Valuation

Wipro is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, operates across all six continents and is ranked the 9th largest employer in India, with over 200,000 employees. As of September 2021, Wipro is the world’s 374th most valuable company, with a market cap of $51.00 Billion.

Philanthropy

Of course, Mr Azim Premji will be remembered for transforming Wipro from a vegetable oil seller to a software giant, but along with this, people will remember him for his big heart. Mr Azim Premji is the first Indian and only third non-American who signed The Giving Pledge, started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, to donate the majority of their wealth to charitable causes. He has donated $21 billion of his wealth as part of the pledge. Apart from this pledge, he has pledged 39% of Wipro shares for philanthropic activities and has also donated an amount of $2 billion to improve education in India.

How Big Is Nike?

Your shoes are the first thing people subconsciously notice about you, which means it’s important to have a pair of high-quality shoes and when it comes to high-quality shoes, who’s going to beat Nike, the undisputed leader in the shoe market. The company started off with a shoemaking business, and currently, Nike, Inc. is engaged in the design, development, manufacturing, and sales of footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories, and services.

How Was Nike Started?

Nike, originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS) from 1964–78, is the world’s most popular and biggest sportswear company headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, America. The company was founded by a track athlete Phil Knight and his track-and-field coach at the University of Oregon, Bill Bowerman, on January 25, 1964.

The company initially operated in Eugene, Oregon as a distributor for Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Tiger and sold 1,300 pairs of Japanese running shoes grossing $8,000 during its first year of business. In the next couple of years, the sales reached above $20,000, and with that, BRS inaugurated its first retail outlet in 1966, at 3107 Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica, California.

Blue Ribbon Sports expanded retail and distribution operations on the East Coast after a tremendous boost in sales, and shortly by 1971, the relationship between BRS and Onitsuka Tiger came to an end. After parting, BRS prepared to launch its footwear line, rebranded as Nike, which was named after a goddess from Greece. The company launched the first Nike brand shoe and showcased its newly designed Swoosh logo on June 18, 1971.

Top 5 Nike Products:

No matter what people around you think of who you are, your hair or skin colour, Nike convinces consumers that you’re beyond all these materialistic things and you can do whatever you want to. The shoe-making legend respects the consumer and the importance of providing a quality product. The brand is creating top-notch products for athletes as well as everyday customers that help them perform better.

Apart from shoes, the company makes other sports-related products like T-shirts, tracksuits, jackets, gloves, hats, socks, and glasses. Nike produces a wide range of sports equipment and apparel, but the company started its journey with track running shoes, and within a couple of years of establishment, brought jogging as a regular exercise to America. Let’s take a look at some of the best shoes produced by Nike over the 50 years.

The Cortez:

The Cortez shoes manufactured by Onitsuka Tiger and distributed by BRS were one of the best-selling shoes in 1968, and most of its credit goes to the 1968 Olympics, held in Mexico. The product was so successful that they couldn’t keep up with the demand, and Onitsuka Tiger was fulfilling the local demand first and was sending only leftovers to America. The fact is Bill Bowerman designed them, but back then, BRS wasn’t an established brand, and till the contract date, all the rights belonged to Onitsuka Tiger. Only during these times, Bill & Phil thought about evolving beyond a simple distributor. The Cortez shoes paved the path of Nike as the founder duo understood what they could do if they started their own shoe-making business single-handedly.

Nike Air Max:

Nike Air Max shoe lineup was first released in 1987 and was conceptualized by Tinker Hatfield. They are identified by their midsoles incorporating flexible urethane sacks filled with pressurized gas, noticeable from the shoe’s exterior and designed to provide cushioning underfoot. The Air Max lineup holds consistent popularity, especially among sneakerheads, hip-hoppers and gabbers. The latest product in the lineup was released in 2019, named Air Max 720.

Nike Air Jordan:

Nike signed the ever-popular basketball player Michael Jordan in 1984 to promote the brand, which proved to be one of the biggest boosts to Nike’sNike’s publicity and sales. The massively successful collaboration between Nike & Michael Jordan resulted in the creation of the unique Air Jordan brand. The Nike Air Jordan shoes were built and designed by keeping the basketball environment in mind. The Air Jordan shoes represent hard work, determination, swag, and drive to accomplish whatever you put your mind to.

Nike SB:

Nike SB or Nike Skate Boarding is a lineup of shoes, clothing, and other skateboarding equipment. Nike began production of its line of skate shoes in 1997 but failed to create an impact on the market during its initial years due to other established skate shoe-making companies like DC, Globe, and Vans. Later on, Nike signed popular American street skateboarder Paul Rodriguez as a figurehead for the brand, and it helped the brand gain people’s attention. Over the years, the Nike SB lineup has created many products, including a few special edition shoes.

Nike Air Force:

The Nike Air Force is an athletic shoe range, and Air Force 1 was the first product from the lineup which designer Bruce Kilgore created in 1982. It was the first basketball shoe to use the Nike Air technology and was offered in low, mid and high-top. The Nike Air Force shoes were named after the plane that carries the President of the United States.

Acquisitions:

Currently, Nike is one of the bestselling shoe manufacturers in the world and since its establishment back in 1964, the shoemaking giant has acquired a number of companies. Nike acquired upscale footwear company, Cole Haan, in 1988; it was Nike’s first Acquisition. Later in the years, Nike purchased Bauer Hockey in 1994, Bob Hurley’s surf apparel company Hurley International in 2002, and paid US$309 million to acquire once-bankrupt rival Converse in the year 2003. Acquiring other companies and handling their businesses somehow distracts Nike from its core business, and to concentrate more on its own brand, Nike sold Bauer Hockey in 2008 and Cole Haan in 2013. Currently, Converse is the only subsidiary owned by Nike.

Valuation:

Currently, Nike is the world’s leading athletic shoes and sports apparel company. The company has claimed the title of World’s Most Valuable Apparel Brand in 2021 (it’s seventh in a row) and has maintained a considerable lead over second-ranked Gucci. Nike has a market valuation of about $244 billion, and the Oregon-based company has over 1100 stores all over the world. The Nike co-founder Phil Knight and his family control about 20% of the business entity, and they are the world’s 23rd richest with a net worth of $58.8 billion.

Did You Know?

Billy Bowerman, the co-founder of Nike, used to make prototypes from kangaroo leather, deer hide, and fish skin during the company’s initial days.
Nike was formed because Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike, was challenged to come up with a business plan for a college assignment.
The popular Nike slogan ‘Just Do It’ was inspired by a serial killer, Gary Gilmore’s last words ‘Let’s Do It’, which he said before his execution.
Nike sells over 900 million items in one year and takes up approximately 62% market share of athletic shoes.
Graphic Designer Carolyn Davidson is best known for designing the Nike Swoosh logo, but the company paid her only $35 for her work. Currently, the Swoosh logo is worth $26 billion alone, not a fair deal for Carolyn.
Nike has recently created electronically paired-up shoes that can connect with a smartphone of whoever is wearing the shoes through a computing device embedded into the footwear.
The largest Nike store spans over 42,000 square feet and is situated on Oxford Street in London.
Romanian tennis player Ilie Nastase was the first athlete to endorse Nike, and Jeff Johnson was the first employee of Nike; yes, Jeff is the guy who came up with the name “Nike.”

How Big Is Walmart?

Walmart remains a little-known entity to most Indians, but it is a regular destination for Americans and several other countries. Walmart is an American chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores, known for being the most successful company in the world. It’s undoubtedly one of the most celebrated and profitable retailers in history, but how Walmart paved its path from a single store to become a global trendsetter is a miracle spin and here’s our answer for the same.

How Did The Grand Vision Of Walmart Began?

The real journey began in 1950 when businessman Sam Walton shifted his base to Bentonville and opened Walton’s 5&10 on the downtown square. Mr Walton’s love for hunting and his vision to acquire most businesses in emerging suburbs and rural outposts that major retailers weren’t serving drags him to Bentonville. Later on, driven by the store’s success and to bring even greater opportunity and value to his customers, Sam opened the first Walmart in 1962.

Sam shared his vision for the company with associates in a way that was nearly unheard of in the industry. The founding of the first Walmart in Rogers was an experiment, and the Walton family was ready to take all the chances. At the same time, his competitors thought his idea to build a business by offering lower prices and a great shopping experience to the customer would never work, but his fate and dedication helped him achieve more than he could have imagined and by 1967, the Walton family owned 24 stores and scored $12.7 million in sales.

Furthermore, the expansion was fueled mainly by opening a number of chain stores around and beyond Arkansas along with acquiring the chains Mohr-Value and Kuhn’s Big K. Sam’s fearless approach in offering lower prices and delivering Walmart’s value to customers in the U.S. and beyond set a standard for the company that lives on to this day. The family-owned business founded back in 1962 by Sam Walton in Rogers, Arkansas, is currently the world’s largest private employer, with approximately 2.3 million employees.

How Walmart Stocks Helped Investors To Grow Big?

The share market trading has produced many millionaires over the decades, and one of the biggest winners has been the Walton family, who has topped Forbes’ listing of the wealthiest families in America for the last three years.

Walmart booked a respectable $78 million of revenue across its 51 stores by 1970, surpassing its competitors to become the nation’s largest retailer. The retail giant matured as a publicly traded company in 1972 and offered 300,000 shares to the public at a price of $16.50 per share.

Walmart has had 11 two-for-one stock splits since its initial public offering. The stock split is a corporate term in which a company increases its shares while simultaneously lowering its market price. So, if you had purchased 100 shares of Walmart at its initial public offering price of $16.50 per share, after stock splits, your investment would be worth over $4.5 million today, and these numbers show us what kind of brand value Walmart had in the share market.

The entire Walmart stock trip has been enormously rewarding for their shareholders except for the most recent past, as Walmart’s newest shareholders haven’t enjoyed blockbuster returns like their decades-old shareholders.

Currently, Walmart’s growth options are limited by its colossal size and by negative retailing trends, and that’s the sole reason new-generation investors analyzing a Walmart stock purchase today are looking at an exceptionally diverse game. As of 28th May 2021, Walmart shares were trading at $142 per share.

Walmart India

Walmart has surpassed many giant retailers by offering the customers the lowest prices as promised from the start, leading the company to open over 11,400 stores globally. The retail giant first announced its plans to come to India in 2007 and commenced its journey in India by partnering along with Bharti Enterprises to achieve liberalization of the Indian market but failed to adapt and thrive in India’s complex business environment and foreign investment policies.

Walmart moved away from its decades-old strategy of selling to customers directly by opening cash-and-carry (CC) format stores in India. The company expanded at lightning speed through heavy investments and developing enduring relationships with small stores and wholesale buyers, with 100% FDI allowed in cash-and-carry wholesale ventures.

The cash-and-carry format works well for Walmart, and currently, the company has over 20 such stores in India and is expected to launch 50 stores by 2021 at an overall investment of over $500 million.

On 9th May 2018, U.S. retail giant signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 77 per cent stake in India’s largest e-commerce firm, Flipkart, for $16 billion. Walmart’s investment in Flipkart comes at a time when India’s e-commerce industry is snowballing. The deal with Flipkart would offer Walmart a direct link to a market that is presumed to be worth $200 billion by 2026.

Sam Walton’s Legacy

Sam Walton died in 1992, shortly after receiving the Medal of Freedom, but his legacy lives on. Sam Walton’s strategy is formed on an unshakeable foundation: the lowest prices anytime, anywhere. After establishing his name with the tremendous success of Walmart, he opened the first Sam’s Club in 1983 for serving small businesses and individuals and opened the first Walmart Supercenter by combining a supermarket with general merchandise.

Sam’s Club

Walmart founder Sam Walton opened the first Sam’s Club on 7th April 1983, in Midwest City, Oklahoma, taking on Costco in the emerging market of Members Only retail outlets. The clubs are arranged like warehouses, with merchandise stocked in steel bins and operate 599 membership warehouse clubs in the United States in 44 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Walmart Supercenter

The first Walmart Supercenter, branded simply as Walmart, opened in Washington, Missouri, in 1988. Walmart Supercenters are hypermarkets with sizes varying from 69,000 to 260,000 square feet but averaging about 178,000 square feet. As of 30th April 2021, there were 3,570 Walmart Supercenters in the U.S. and the largest one in the world is located in Crossgates Commons in Albany, New York, covering a 260,000 square feet area.

Sam Walton’s Top 10 Rules For Building A Better Business:

Commit to your business.
Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners.
Motivate your partners.
Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners.
Appreciate everything your associates do for the business.
Celebrate your success.
Listen to everyone in your company.
Exceed your customers’ expectations.
Control your expenses better than your competition.
Swim upstream.

Valuation & Debt

Walmart continued as a global leader in the ensuing years, and in the second decade of the 21st century, it began to acquire numerous e-commerce businesses, including Jet.com in 2016, Moosejaw in 2017 and Flipkart in 2018. As of 31st January 2021, Walmart’s total revenue was $559 billion, and Sam’s Club accounted for 11.3% of Walmart’s revenue at $57.839 billion in the fiscal year 2019.

Currently, Walmart operates approximately 10,526 stores and clubs under 48 banners in 24 countries and eCommerce websites. As of 19th March 2021, long-term debt is at $45.04 billion, and current debt is at $3.83 billion, amounting to $48.87 billion in total debt.

The Timeline Of Major Events:

1968 – In 1968, it opened its first stores outside Arkansas in Sikeston, Missouri and Claremore, Oklahoma.

1970 – It began trading stock as a publicly held company on 1st October 1970 and was soon listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

1978 – In 1978, Walmart opened its pharmacy, auto service, and jewellery divisions.

1979 – Walmart’s becomes the fastest company to reach a 1 billion milestone.

1983 – In April 1983, the company opened its first Sam’s Club store, a membership-based discount warehouse club, in Midwest City, Oklahoma.

1990- By 1990, it became the largest United States retailer by revenue.

2003 – Fiscal 2003 revenues of 244.52 billion make Wal-Mart the world’s largest corporation.

2007 – On 12th September 2007, for the first time in 13 years, Walmart introduced new advertising with the slogan, Save Money Live Better, instead of Always Low Prices, Always.

2010 – On 22nd February 2010, the company confirmed acquiring the video streaming company Vudu, Inc. for an estimated 100 million.

2015 – In 2015, Walmart was the biggest US commercial producer of solar power with 142 MW capacity and had 17 energy storage projects.

How Big Is Netflix?

People might forget the Prime Minister’s name in a few years, but they’ll never forget Netflix; it makes such a vast impact on society today. Netflix is absolutely dominating the streaming video market with 150 million subscribers (and counting) across 190 countries. With that, the day is not far when Netflix will bundle up the TV industry and cable services, but there was a time when even Netflix struggled to get recognition.

How Netflix Got Started?

Netflix began as the world’s first online DVD-rental store in 1997 when almost half of their current subscribers were about to land on the planet. The founder duo, Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings, started the business with only 30 employees and 925 available titles. At first, Netflix used to deliver film DVD’s to its customers by mail and customers used to return them the same way.

The company set similar prices and due dates for rental to compete with the established Blockbuster video rental business. After struggling in the initial years, Netflix reached around 5.6 million subscriptions during the end of 2006 and decided to seize the benefits from the then developing higher-bandwidth internet by launching online video streaming in 2007 alongside its dominant DVD-by-mail option.

2011 marked a significant year for Netflix as the streaming service reached over 23 million subscribers in the United States by April 2011 and branched out to the international market of Latin America. Looking forward to the success in July 2011, Netflix changed its prices, charging customers for its mail rental service and streaming service separately. Later on, in the next couple of years, Netflix moved further and launched itself worldwide except for a select few countries.

Introduction of Video-on-demand Service:

Netflix delivered its billionth DVD in February 2007 and commenced to move away from its core business model of DVDs by introducing Video-on-demand via the internet. These were the times when internet broadband service providers came up with affordable plans for the customers, and personal computers got powerful enough to stream online and download movies from the net.

Netflix’s Video-on-demand service, formerly branded as Watch Now, allowed its subscribers to stream television series and films whenever they want, wherever they want, via the Netflix website on personal computers or the Netflix software on multiple supported platforms like smartphones, tablets, digital media players, and smart TVs, without even being attached to the schedule.

Netflix Originals:

A Netflix Originals is a type of content produced, co-produced, or distributed by Netflix exclusively on its services. Netflix offered creators a new approach of making by providing the money upfront and immediately ordering two seasons of most series by introducing Netflix Original in 2013 when several other known studios and producers were used to fund and sign projects based on pilot episodes, a brave and expensive proposition. The decision creates its impact as most big-budget and talked-about new series evolved out on Netflix instead of other established networks, including House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, and Orange Is the New Black.

Netflix continued to dramatically expand its original content by introducing scripted and unscripted categories. They added TV series, shows, and films in the scripted category, while documentaries, reality shows, and award shows were unscripted. After the tremendous success of regional content in the English language, Netflix ventured out and started producing series and films in Non-English languages.

Most Watched Netflix Original Series:

The Witcher, Season 1 – 76 Million
Lupin – 70 Million
Money Heist, Season 4 – 65 Million
Stranger Things, Season 3 – 64 Million
Tiger King – 64 Million

Netflix India:

Netflix arrived in India in January 2016, almost at the same time when Eros Now and HotStar introduced a Video-on-demand service in India. Crime thriller Sacred Games, directed by filmmaker Vikramaditya Motwane, was Netflix’s first big global success coming out of India and with the Delhi Crime winning precious Emmy award added a much-awaited dove feather on its cap.

Top Indian Shows on Netflix:

Sacred Games
Delhi Crime
Selection Day
Bard Of Blood
Jamtara – Sabka Number Ayega

The Playback Feature:

On November 30, 2016, Netflix introduced an offline playback feature, enabling users of the Netflix mobile apps on Android or iOS to watch content on their devices in standard or high quality for viewing without an Internet connection. Also, Netflix lets people choose the speed they want to watch something on their phone or tablet with new playback controls where they can stream at either 0.5x or 0.75x speeds for slowed-down viewing and 1.25x or 1.5x speeds for faster watching. The feature was originally available on limited series and films, but Netflix said that the feature would support more content over time.

The Binge-watching Concept:

Netflix has developed clever tricks to engage viewers and keep them on the platform, and binge-watching was one of them. The company started uploading entire seasons of popular TV series at once, creating the binge-watching trend, in contrast to broadcast and cable TV’s once-a-week telecast schedule. The concept helps Netflix keep people hooked until the end, resulting in encouraging creators to make good content.

Least cost-effective library of Netflix: Switzerland, with Standard subscription charges of $0.00218 per title and a library size that barely cracks 4,000 titles.

Most cost-effective library of Netflix: Argentina, with Standard subscription charges $0.00039 per title.

Valuation:

Netflix began as a DVD-by-mail rental service, but after a decade, its DVD revenue and membership have dipped as more customers switch to their Video-on-demand services. As of 2020, the company secured over $800 million from DVD sales and rentals, with over 2 million patrons still signed up solely for the DVD service.

Netflix is fortunate that many of its original shows have been a hit with consumers across the globe. Netflix’s ever-growing global subscriber base has heavily impacted its revenue, and it is growing into huge numbers. Netflix has also significantly increased its licensed and produced content assets since 2016. The company’s annual revenue in 2016 was $8.83 billion, and it rose about 180% in 2020 as Netflix totaled almost $25 billion in revenue in 2020. As of January 2021, Netflix is worth over $247 billion.

Debt:

Netflix borrowed over $16 billion in less than a decade to fulfil its giant appetite for content. The company still has $10 billion to $15 billion in debt, but it now earned enough income to pay back those loans while maintaining its huge content budget. Netflix took a massive hit in the furrow of the coronavirus pandemic as it fueled a surge in streaming services and reached a financial milestone, and it may no longer need to borrow money.

Key People:

Reed Hastings: Co-founder, Chairman and Co-CEO
Marc Randolph: Co-founder and former CEO
Ted Sarandos: Co-CEO and CCO
Greg Peters: COO and CPO

Did You Know?

Netflix was one of the first streaming services available as an app on different devices like Xbox 360, TV set-top boxes, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, iPad, iPhones, etc.
Netflix offers content in more than 60 languages, for 19% of all worldwide online video subscriptions.
Netflix has received over 480 awards for its original content, including 15 Academy Awards and 89 Emmy awards.
Netflix has created over 1,500 original titles since it started offering original content in 2013.
In 2017, a Netflix Subscriber watched the movie Madagascar 3 for 352 times, almost like watching the same movie every day the entire year.
In the first half of 2019, Netflix generated the most internet traffic, which accounted for 12.9%.
Netflix designed a unique sock that detects when you fall asleep, and it will pause your show so that you don’t miss out on any part of it.

Netflix 2021 & Further:

Netflix already has a substantial global subscriber base. The company clinched March 2021 with an astounding 203 million worldwide paid subscribers. However, still, there have been thousands of people doubting the streaming giant’s ability to survive and thrive amid new streaming services providers, such as Amazon Prime, Disney+ Hotstar and Apple TV. Definitely, the competition is tough, but in current times, there is no other streaming Video-on-demand service that has anywhere near Netflix’s $15 billion content budget to pose a severe threat.

How Big Is Sony?

Sony is a popular household name in the entire world; the brand is marking its 75th anniversary this year. We all know Sony Corp. is a Japanese manufacturer who engages in developing, designing, manufacturing and selling electronic equipment, instruments, devices, game consoles that help us make our lives better but do we know how it all started and how big is Sony now? Very few of us are aware of it, and for the rest of the people, here is the answer.

Sony India:

In 1994, Sony Corporation started its business in India when it founded an Indian subsidiary Sony India Pvt. Ltd headquartered in New Delhi. Sony marked its presence across all principal towns and cities through a distribution network of over 10,400 dealers-distributors, 270 exclusive Sony outlets and 30 warehouses. In 2012, Sony Corporation restructured its India business by forming two separate units, one for engaging sales and marketing operations, headquartered in New Delhi and the other for focusing on software and product development, based in Bengaluru.

Products Manufactured by Sony in India:

LCD Televisions
Video and Digital Still Cameras
Audio-Video Accessories
Hi-fi Audios and Home Theater Systems
Car Audio and Visual Systems
Game Consoles
Mobile Phones
Recording Media
Energy Devices
Broadcast and Professional products

Establishment:

In 1946, Masaru Ibuka started an electronics shop in Shirokiya, Tokyo, with eight employees and supplied electronic goods to the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Later on, Ibuka was joined by Akio Morita, an applied sciences instructor, and together they found Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo On 7th May 1946. The company’s first consumer product was an electric rice cooker, which was a massive failure, and it is reported that it sold less than 100 units due to undercooking and overcooking issues. The product that helped them become a household name was a Type-G tape recorder, which they launched in the market in 1950; it was the first Japanese designed tape recorder.

Globalization:

The company occasionally used the acronym ‘Totsuko’ in Japan to avoid confusion with the railway company Tokyo Kyuko, as both of them used TTK as their initials to make it catchy to the consumers. The company’s fortune changed when Morita went to the United States in 1953 and signed the deal with Western Electric. The agreement paves the way to Totsuko’s first hugely successful product line: transistor radios.

During his visit, he discovered that Americans had trouble pronouncing the name Totsuko and this is how the name Sony arrived on the board. The first Sony-branded product, the TR-55 transistor radio, appeared in 1955, but the company name did not switch to Sony until January 1958. Sony’s pocket radios, particularly TR-63 radio, were a huge success and earned international recognition as a brand.

The Taste of Success & Sony Subsidiaries:

In 1960 the company founded Sony Corporation of America in the United States with headquarters in New York City. In the next few years, Sony successfully invented and shipped products like MD5 – the first all-transistor desktop calculator, the first Trinitron colour television, the first colour video cassette recorder and emerged as an electronics giant of the world.

In 1979, the Sony Walkman portable tape player hit the streets. However, most of the engineers at Sony were worried about its success as the device could only play and not record, but the Walkman became an international sensation, as Sony sold hundreds of millions of units.

Sony is known for its innovation. They are always on the radar for acquiring new technology or improving the existing ones. In 1982, Sony signed an agreement with Dutch manufacturer Philips Electronics and created the first compact disc player, and in the later years, they manufactured DVD players; Later on, along with a few other tech companies, Sony invented Floppy Disks and Blu-ray Discs; these newly arrived products gained popularity for Sony in the European and North American markets.

Sony Cameras:

In 1983, Sony released the first camcorder, the Betacam system, for professional use and entered the photography and videography field. Its point-and-shoot models, branded as the Cyber-shot, were introduced in 1996. Later in 2006, Sony entered the market with digital single-lens reflex models branded as Alpha. In 2010, Sony introduced their first mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras, which were the NEX-3 and the NEX-5. Currently, Sony is the world’s third-largest manufacturer of cameras, only behind Canon and Nikon, respectively.

Sony Pictures:

In 1989, Sony purchased the rights of Columbia Pictures, an American film production company, from Cocacola under the name Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. Sony has since created numerous other film production and distribution units. It expanded its operations on 8th April 2005, when a Sony-led consortium acquired the legendary Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in a US$4.8 billion deal.

Since its formation, Sony Pictures have created popular franchises like The Karate Kid, Spider-Man, Jumanji, Stuart Little and Men in Black. They’ve also produced one of the best TV series like Breaking Bad and The Good Doctor. Sony Pictures Networks India: A subsidiary of Sony Corporation based in India, owns several television channels with the brand name Sony as the first name of the channel.

Along with several channels, Sony has an entertainment application named SonyLIV, a video-on-demand service, owned by Sony Pictures Networks India. It is available on all platforms like Android, iOS devices, Smart TVs and other devices.

PlayStation – Video Game Console:

Admit it, you are a fan of PlayStations, and the fact is most of us got to know about Sony via the PlayStation consoles. The early 1990s were difficult years for Sony as the Japanese economy entered recession, and Sony declared its first loss of more than $200 million in 1993, but we all know that after every storm comes a rainbow and in 1994, Sony’s entertainment division introduced its PlayStation video game console to the Japanese market. As a fifth-generation console, the PlayStation principally competed with the Nintendo 64 and the Sega Saturn.

The PlayStation signalled Sony’s rise to power in the video game industry as it became the first computer entertainment platform to ship over 100 million units in less than a decade, and by 2002 the game unit was contributing more than 10 percent of the company’s annual revenue. The PlayStation 2 is still the world’s best-selling gaming console by a considerable margin; as of now, it has sold over 163 million units. In 2020, Sony launched the PS5, which again became one of the best-selling consoles of all time. It had the biggest launch of any console till date.

Sony Mobiles:

In 2000, Sony was a marginal player in the mobile phone market with a share of less than 1 percent. Then, in 2001, Sony formed a joint venture with Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson, forming Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications. Initially, it faced challenges and losses, but it gained profit in the next couple of years. Sony Ericsson phones were popular due to top-notch features such as cameras; at that time, it was a rare feature in mobile phones.

In 2009, Sony Ericsson was the fourth-largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. After buying ‘Ericsson’ in 2012 for over US$1 billion, Sony changed its mobile phone manufacturing division to ‘Sony Mobile Communications’ and started focusing entirely on the smartphone market under the Xperia brand, but still, they are struggling to make a profit due to the immense level of competition in the smartphone market.

Sony Music:

It was initially founded in 1929 as American Record Corporation, and after several acquisitions, Sony Corporation bought the company in 1988, renaming it under its current name in 1991. As of 2020, Sony Music Entertainment is the second largest of the top three record companies, behind Universal Music Group and followed by Warner Music Group.

Did You Know?

Sony had a dress code from 1970 to 1980, and employees used to wear a particular type of uniform while they were in the workplace. The uniforms were designed by the famous tech-fashion designer Issey Miyake.
Sony is serving all over the world; as of 2019, they have over 114,000 employees. Some occurrences occurred when Sony had to cut off thousands of jobs due to the decline in product sale. For example, in 2008, Sony had reduced its workforce by 8,000 to save about 1.1 billion USD per year.
Sony has acquired about 100 companies as of 2019. And, still, they are purchasing new companies from time to time. Columbia Pictures, Sony Ericsson and Ten Sports were a few of the prominent ones.
Sony Financial Holdings, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, and owned by Sony Corporation, provides different types of financial services, and it is one of the most profitable companies of Sony Corporation.
Sony was a powerful influence in making Japan one of the mightiest exporters back in 1960, 1970, and 1980. The high-end quality of its products with the notion ‘Made in Japan’ helped Japan get recognition worldwide.

Sony Valuation & Debt:

According to the recently published financial statements, Sony Corporation has a Current Valuation of USD 141.81 Billion and based on the latest financial disclosure Sony Corporation has a Total Debt of USD 23.32 Billion.

The Future of Sony:

Sony emerged as one of the top electronics giants in the world during the mid-20th century and dominated the electronics industry since its inception in 1960, but started losing its place right throughout the mid to late-2000s. It has endured a declining market share for its many products but increasing profits for others as well. Sony currently dominates in the space of cameras, TVs and gaming consoles.

Although they are not much famous in the world of smartphones, they’re venturing out into the new markets. For example, Sony plans to release a brand new electric car in the market very soon. Furthermore, the PS5 is a shining example of Sony doing things right. The console is in extremely high demand worldwide and can bring in recurring profits for the company. Sony’s future will be exhilarating to watch as the company embraces new technologies and brings forth the best that it can offer.