The Wrap #1: Tesla <> India, Vi's blockbuster FPO and the iPhone killer
It takes me approximately 80 minutes to reach to the office. Most of that time, goes standing [or sitting if it’s my lucky day] in a metro. I take some office calls. Other times I get the chance to read what’s new in business and finance.
With ‘The 2 Minute Wrap’ — the idea is to break down 3 interesting stories I’ve read and bring them to your attention. Now, because of time constraints — I cannot release this on a daily frequency — but maybe twice or thrice in a week.
And with that, let’s get to our first story for Wrap #1!
When will Tesla finally come to India?
Short answer — not anytime soon.
WHY?
Because setting up a manufacturing line costs a LOT of money — and it’s not that Elon is shy of spending money to expand rapidly, but he is adopting a different strategy to increase production in EXISTING factories to produce new and more affordable cars.
Musk has announced that he wants to launch a more affordable model of Tesla in the latter half of 2025 — but I would take that with a pinch of salt given Musk’s forecasts don’t always pan out accurately!
Musk was supposed to meet the Honorable Prime Minister of India — Narendra Modi a couple of days back to announce significant investments in an auto factory to produce small + affordable vehicles in India — however Musk cancelled the meeting at the last moment .
The meeting is now scheduled to be held later in the year.
So unless Musk wakes up tomorrow and abruptly changes his mind about expanding into India & Mexico [which is quite possible] — it’s going to be a while till we see a Tesla being produced in India.
INDIA’S BIGGEST FPO
I am a loyal Vi user — not because I like the services offered by Vi, but because I am too lazy to get my sim ported to Jio. But, not everyone is like me — because Vi has been consistently losing subscribers to Jio / Airtel with no end in sight.
I wrote an article [which you can read here] a few months back talking about everything wrong with Vi and the options on the table for Vi’s management to be able to revive the company.
And what has the management decided?
To raise a LOT of money. From the public. From banks. From the promoters.
Vi has successfully closed it’s INR 18,000 CRORE follow-on public offer (FPO) which witnessed strong demand from global investors such as GQG partners, Capital Group and Fidelity Investments among others.
The FPO is expected to be followed by a INR 25,000 CRORE debt issue. And before the FPO, Vi’s board had approved a preferential share issue of INR 2,057 crore to Oriana Investments Pte Limited (an Aditya Birla Group entity).
18,000 + 25,000 + 2,057 = 45,057 crore
Out of this total fundraise, Vi plans to use 70% of the funds to strengthen it’s 4G operations and start rolling out it’s 5G network.
Declining subscriber base. Inability to compete with Jio / Airtel. Astronomical Debt. Negative net-worth. These are some of the many problems that Vi is facing at the moment and this fundraise should help arrest some of these problems.
The market was certainly quite happy with this move, prompting Vi’s stock to significantly surge upwards before it came crashing down the next day. A quick lesson on why it is so difficult to ‘time’ the market.
iPhone Vs Huawei
China is the biggest smartphone market in the world — and Apple is slowly losing it’s foothold in it. Apple’s market share fell to 15.6% in Q12024 due to rising competition from Honor, Oppo, Vivo [in the mid / low range segment] and Huawei [in the premium / high range segment]
What is Huawei doing to draw market share from Apple?
Well, it has launched two premium smartphones — the Mate 60 series and the Pura 70 series. These phones must be pretty darn good to give an iPhone a run for it’s money.
One of the primary reasons is — that Huawei has developed a chip inhouse together with China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC).
The Mate 60 smartphone is powered by a 7 nanometer chip, seen as a symbol of China’s technological resurgence despite sanctions placed by the U.S. on Huawei stating that the company posed a threat to US national security.
Huawei spends almost 25% of it’s revenue on R&D and with these recent launches, it looks like a force to be reckoned with in the future.
Nobody buys a farm based on whether they think it's going to rain next year. They buy it because they think it's a good investment over 10 or 20 years. ~ Warren Buffett