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Revised 5/6/2013 – Thin Film Solar (TFS) panels may be the latest technology in solar power, but they are not necessarily better in terms of their power delivery, a researcher has said. “From a materials point of view, TFS panels that are in commercial production are not fundamentally more efficient than the latest Silicon (Si) crystalline photovoltaic (PV) solar panels,” Dr Frederik Vorster, senior researcher at the Photovoltaics Research Unit, in the Centre for Energy Research (CER), Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University reports in an intervice.
The cost of TFS panels has declined in developed markets, but Vorster said that despite this, the panels suffered from degrading light effects.”The solar materials that are used in TFS panels suffer from a host of degradation effects, including light induced degradation. Most reputable manufacturers of TFS panels will offset the expected reduced power production as a result of degradation, when quoting the long term performance figures of the module.”
He also said that the cost of the panels was not an advantage when considered against the degrading effects of light over time. Electricity prices “Although most TFS panels are cheaper to buy, the durability of a panel and its ability to produce energy (kWh) over a 25 year term needs to be considered. In other words, the cost per unit of energy produced (R/kWh) over a long term needs to be considered,” Vorster argued.
Electricity prices in are set to increase for domestic consumers in SA and the cost has seen solar power become a viable option for home owners who may spend in excess of R1 000 per month on electricity. The local industry has seen a boom with several manufacturers offering everything from DIY solar kits to fully professionally installed solar systems at price points ranging from system with enough power for lights to those that can a take a house completely off the national grid.
Thin Film Solar panels are amorphous in nature which means that the atoms are arranged in an irregular order which is inefficient for conduction of electricity.There are continued developments in traditional Silicon solar panels though, and Vorster said that innovation with these could increase their performance. “Big improvements in the anti-reflective coatings that are used in crystalline Si panels have, however, dramatically increased the ability of these solar panels to absorb sunlight. In low light (cloudy) conditions the ability of any solar panel to absorb sunlight gives it an advantage.”


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Mark Borham, Customer Success Manager at Agendrix, tells about how they found a way to save time for communicating their product releases with AnnounceKit.
Stacy Goh tells us how adding AnnounceKit to her workflow has improved the way Outwrite communicates product launches and updates.
Justine Nominé, Executive Assistant at Atolia told about their 12-month journey on managing a better announcement and communication process with AnnounceKit.
Because AnnounceKit has really simple usage and an easy-to-use interface, the process of publishing these announcements is really faster now.
Flexfone users felt that they were being left out of the loop with the updates before AnnounceKit
Tropical Fruit Box uses AnnounceKit to create several updates in minutes.
Visible is using AnnounceKit to promote their work and new product updates.
In-app widgets are varying components that can be embedded in your webpage to display a piece of information, and they have become an important part of the UI strategy nowadays.
AnnounceKit provides iVent with easier ways of announcing the latest news to their fast-growing customers. That’s why they chose AnnounceKit to keep their long list of customers updated.
Internal communication for product launch refers to building awareness and excitement of people in the company around major product launches.
With AnnounceKit, Coassemble notifies their customers about product updates and company news in the right context, at the right time.
CG Boost uses AnnounceKit to keep their audience engaged and up-to-date with their recent news and updates.

domain: news


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Electrophorus Voltai can provide an 860-volt, much more than the existing 650-volt record founded in the Amazon basin.
DNA research has revealed two completely new species of electric eel in the Amazon basin, one of which is capable of producing a record shock.
The findings demonstrate, say the researchers, the incredible diversity of the Amazon rainforest, much of which remains unknown to science, and show why it is so important to protect the habitat at risk of deforestation, logging, and fires…
Even though the human involvement in the Amazon rainforest in the last 50 years, Still many giant fish can be discovered like the 2 new species of electric eels, many parts of Amazon still human not discovered, researcher C David de Santana, a zoologist who works for the Smithsonian. National Museum of Natural History.
The research tells us that a large number of species are expected to be found in the Amazon rainforest, but only comes out when researchers discover it.
The electric eel, which is a kind of fish instead of an eel, inspired the design of the first electric battery.
For centuries, it was believed that there were only one species in the region called the Great Amazonia, which covers parts of countries such as Brazil, Suriname, and Guyana.
But as part of a project to better understand the electric eel and the wildlife map in remote areas of South America, De Santana, and his team decided to test this theory.
At first glance, they found little visible difference between creatures captured in different parts of the Amazon basin, suggesting that the fish were part of a single species.
But other analyses, which include DNA from 107 collected samples, date back to centuries of assumptions and reveal three species: Electrophorus electricus, as well as Electrophorus voltai and Electrophorus varii.
And his research also revealed another surprising result: E. voltai is capable of delivering an 860-volt, much more than the 650 volts previously registered by electric eels, “making it the most powerful bioelectricity generator known to this day.”
The results, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, assume that the three species evolved from a common ancestor millions of years ago.
The researchers found that each of the three species had a clearly defined habitat, E. electricus that lives in the region of the Guiana Shield, E. voltai in the Shield of Brazil, a mountainous region further south, and E. varii that inhabits in the waters of the Amazon basin at low flow.
And they suggest that the particularly powerful electric shock that E. voltai can produce could be an adaptation to life in high altitude waters, where conductivity is reduced.
Electric eels use their crash tactics for a variety of reasons, including prey hunting, self-defense, and navigation. They generate electricity from three specialized electrical devices that can emit charges of different intensities for different purposes.
But the discovery of new species suggests the possibility that different types of eels have developed different methods of producing electricity, perhaps better adapted to their diverse environments.
“The physiology of the electric eel has inspired the design of Volta’s first electric battery, provided a basis … for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases and has recently encouraged the development of hydrogel batteries that can be used to feed medical implants,” Santana said.
Also read: Top 10 Endangered Species On Earth


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Social-media platform Reddit — the home of AMAs, Wall Street Bets and thousands of other online communities — publicly filed its registration statement for an IPO on Thursday, detailing plans to push further into advertising, data sales and analytics, and what it called its budding user-driven economy.
The company, founded in 2005, plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “RDDT.” The filing did not disclose the number of shares to be offered or their potential price. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and BofA Securities are the lead book-running managers.
Reddit first confidentially filed a draft registration statement for a proposed public offering in 2021.
Reddit also said it would offer some of those shares in the IPO to its users and moderators, depending on their reputation and contribution to the platform. Those participants would need to be over the age of 18, live in the U.S. and have an account on or before Jan. 1.
“We want this sense of ownership to be reflected in real ownership — for our users to be our owners,” co-founder and Chief Executive Steve Huffman said in Reddit’s IPO filing. “Becoming a public company makes this possible. With this in mind, we are excited to invite the users and moderators who have contributed to Reddit to buy shares in our IPO, alongside our investors.”
The company’s public debut would arrive amid potential traces of life in the IPO market this year, and as Reddit tries to compete with far-bigger rivals such as Meta Platforms Inc.
and TikTok. Some digital-media outlets, meanwhile, are waiting for a bigger recovery in the digital-ad market.
Reddit, in its IPO prospectus, also warned that user engagement can come and go based on big cultural events — like the pandemic or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And it cited the prospect of rivals copying its own features as a potential risk.
The company grew sales last year to $804 million, up 20.5% year over year. However, it is losing money. It put up a net loss of $90.8 million last year.
Still, the company said that in December, it drew more than 500 million visitors. In the quarter that ended on Dec. 31, Reddit said it had an average of 73.1 million daily active uniques — or someone who drops by at least once in a 24-hour period. And in the prospectus, Reddit tried to pitch itself as a massive repository for human experience and interaction.
“Whatever people are into or going through, it is on Reddit,” Huffman said in the filing.
He said Reddit was developing more ways for users to make money on the platform. The filing highlighted moves to allow users earn money by creating avatars, offering photo-editing services, selling watches and commissioning art. And it said it planned to offer more developer tools, and increase the ways users can “recognize contributors with real-world money to incentivize and reward quality content creation.”
Reddit said it takes a cut from avatar creators’ earnings, and said building out the user economy would “allow us to grow new revenue streams beyond advertising.”
Similar efforts haven’t always worked. When Hasbro Inc.’s
Wizards of the Coast segment, which oversees the role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons,” proposed a royalty payment on higher-earning game developers whose work used the D&D infrastructure, the efforts backfired last year following protests from creators.
Reddit also wants to find ways to make the ads that appear on its site more prominent, more AI-driven and more precise. It said it wanted to offer more video ads, and ads in new places, like comment threads and search pages, along with existing ads in the home feed.
Reddit also said it was “in the early stages of allowing third parties to license access to search, analyze, and display historical and real-time data from our platform.” Customers, it said, could pay for real-time data feeds of anonymous, public discussions on Reddit. The filing also said the content on Reddit could be used to feed AI and large language models.
“Reddit is one of the internet’s largest corpuses of authentic and constantly updated human-generated experience,” the filing said. “In an increasingly data-driven world, we recognize that this information is increasingly important for a multitude of different uses and applications.”
“We believe the internet should work for consumers and they should be able to find the information they need or experiences they want,” the filing continued. “And, organizations need to prioritize sources of real-time human perspectives — from a company looking for feedback on a new consumer product to investors trying to capture market sentiments or signals — and Reddit provides a differentiated solution.”
Separately, Reddit announced a deal that will allow Alphabet’s
Google to use Reddit posts to train its AI models and improve Google Search. The deal, valued at about $60 million, will “make it easier to discover and access the communities and conversations people are looking for on Reddit,” the company said.


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The usual screams and excitement that greets the announcement of a winner was missing when Antoinette Delali Kemavor was announced as Miss Ghana 2015 at the Accra International Conference Centre last Saturday.
This was probably because another contestant, Rebecca Asamoah has endeared herself to the hearts of the audience with her on-point delivery in addition to winning three awards earlier in the competition.
Many in the audience thought she was the obvious choice but she emerged second runner-up much to the disappointment of many patrons.
Delali might not have been the most impressive on the night but she walked away with the ultimate and drove home a brand new C4 Aircoss Citreon.
In addition to that she will have a one year volunteering with Exclusive Events Ghana/ Miss Ghana Foundation, one year accomodation at the Miss Ghana House, one year Platinum Gym membership at Pippas Health Centre, an opportunity to represent Ghana at the next Miss World Event.
That is not all, she will get free computer fundamentals and Microsoft Office from IPMC for six weeks and souvenirs from sponsors such as ATL, FC Skin and Beauty Klinik, Special Ice, Forever Easy and LAWASH.
– See more at: http://www.graphic.com.gh/entertainment/showbiz-news/53007-delali-wins-miss-ghana-2015.html#sthash.gll40tqq.dpuf


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Minister of Justice Áslaug Arna Sigurbjörnsdóttir wants to legalize ads for alcohol, saying banning them isn’t working and discriminates against Icelandic producers. RÚV reports that a parliamentary bill is currently being drafted which, if passed, would make alcohol advertisements legal in Iceland.
Áslaug Arna has recently presented a draft bill to Alþingi which would allow for Iceland’s state-run liquor stores to sell alcohol online. It is currently legal for Icelanders to buy alcohol from foreign companies and have it shipped to their homes (subject to import duties), but they must go in-person to purchase alcohol sold in Iceland.
The minister asserts that allowing Icelandic alcohol producers to start advertising would give them an equal footing with their foreign counterparts. “There are, of course, alcohol ads everywhere today—when we’re watching foreign sports on TV, browsing foreign magazines, or on all these social media sites today. So the ban isn’t working.”
A survey prepared for the Minister of Education on the business environment in media also proposed that the current ban on alcohol advertising in Iceland be overturned.
Ólafur Stephensen, CEO of the Icelandic Federation of Trade, says that the same reasoning that applies to allowing the sale of alcohol online in Iceland applies to this issue. Icelandic businesses have, he affirms, agreed to abide by very strict regulations, should the ban be overturned.
Unsurprisingly, however, not everyone is in favour of the proposed change. Árni Guðmundsson, the chair of the Parental Association Against Alcohol Advertising, says that children’s right to not encounter alcohol propaganda is more important than business considerations. He says that alcohol advertising is aimed at children and teens and that just because alcohol advertisements come into Iceland from other places, that’s no reason to relax public health and prevention criteria.
Áslaug Arna argues however that since the ban isn’t working, it would make more sense to set specific regulations on advertising.


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PARIS, September 23, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --
Hardware Club, the highly selective club of Hardware Startups, has appointed as its new Chairman Pascal Cagni, who spearheaded Apple's growth in Europe for 12 years and is the founder of C4 Ventures.
Alongside renowned investors, Pascal Cagni invested in Hardware Club's initial financing round. Other strategic investors include Bruno Maisonnier (founder of Aldebaran Robotics), Marie Ekeland (founder of France Digitale & Daphni), Stephane Distinguin (founder of Fabernovel), and Ryota Matsuzaki (ex-Rakuten Director and founder of Kibidango).
Sonny Vu (co-founder and CEO at Misfit) and Jeff Burton (co-founder of Electronic Arts) also joined its board of advisors.
Launched 12 months ago by co-founders Alexis Houssou and Barbara Belvisi, Hardware Club's mission is to help founders scale up their companies. "The Hardware Renaissance has unleashed an immense potential which needs to be fostered. We are here to help startups that have an already proven demand to become the next giants of consumer electronics," explains co-founder Alexis Houssou.
Hardware Club selects the most promising hardware startups worldwide and provides them with a whole new level of support on hardware-related challenges, including an unprecedented set of resources and partnerships. The platform has already closed partnerships with leading manufacturing firms including Foxconn, Jabil and Quanta Computer and global distribution networks such as Amazon, Target and Media-Saturn.
Since its launch, Hardware Club has attracted a significant amount of attention among the hardware ecosystem and very quickly became the world's largest community of hardware companies. It now officially counts 86 selected members from 20 countries including companies like Misfit, Thync, Narrative, Click&Grow and Hyperloop Transportation Technologies.
Once companies are selected to become members, their access to the community, resources and partnerships are free of charge. Hardware Club also operates as an investment firm, investing in a number of its early stage members. For instance, Hardware Club was the first investor in Prynt, the Instant Camera smartphone case that raised over $1.5M on Kickstarter last February. More recently, Hardware Club made 2 seed investments in robotics startups: Keecker, the world's first smart home robot and Reach Robotics, the company behind the amazing Mecha Monsters robots.
"In the hardware industry more than any other, time matters. Startups often lose months looking for the right manufacturing partners, trying to get in touch with the relevant merchants or raising funding rounds. Hardware Club was designed as a solution to this challenge with the aim of facilitating large-scale manufacturing, global distribution and financing for hardware startups," commented co-founder Barbara Belvisi.
Pascal Cagni, newly appointed Chairman at Hardware Club said in a statement, "When I met the team last year, I immediately shared their vision of supporting hardware startups by leveraging the power of a large community. Combined with key partnerships into the hardware eco-system, Hardware Club should become the catalyst of a new generation of successful hardware startups."
In 2000, Steve Jobs appointed Cagni as Apple's General Manager and VP Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA). Here, Cagni grew annual sales significantly from $1.2bn in 2001 to $40bn in 2012. Today, he serves as a board member of Vivendi SA and Kingfisher plc. He recently joined, alongside Anna Wintour, the board of directors of Condé Nast owned e-commerce website Style.com. He is also the founder and partner at C4 Ventures c4v.com, his London-based Venture Capital firm.
Barbara Belvisi, co-founder at Hardware Club commented, "We're thrilled to welcome Pascal as our new Chairman. There are very few people with this level of experience and vision. His insight within the hardware business will be invaluable to us."
To achieve its vision, Hardware Club recently welcomed two new partners: Jerry Yang, a former Qualcomm-Atheros senior engineer and Caroline Lair, a former Apple employee, to strengthen its team and widen its support on manufacturing & distribution. With offices recently opened in Paris, Taipei and San Francisco, Hardware Club is now all set to make the hardware renaissance truly happen.
About The Hardware Club
Hardware Club is the first global scaling platform for hardware startups.
Hardware Club selects the most promising startups worldwide and helps them with key hardware issues like manufacturing and distribution. Hardware Club has its own investment arm that invests in some of the Club's startups during the pre-seed, seed and series A rounds.
All members benefit from unlimited and free access to a dedicated set of resources: private events worldwide, a community of more than 150 hardware founders, an online platform and strategic partnerships with top-tier manufacturers, distributors and service providers.
Everyone at Hardware Club is stage, geography and sector agnostic. Based in Paris, Taipei and San Francisco, Hardware Club believe the hardware revolution is global and so are they.
SOURCE Hardware Club


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Al Amin is a jamdani saree weaver, the traditional fine muslin textile of Bengal produced for centuries that had made the Mughal province of Bangalah a familiar name in the aristocratic circles in the world.
He weaves his sarees in the Jamdani Palli in Rupganj of Narayanganj, the country's biggest Jamdani production and marketing hub. Not a big shot in the business, he only has Tk8 lakh in capital and 10 pit looms in his small factory.
He buys yarns, weaves the sarees and crafts designs based on the orders he gets from Aarong and other fashion houses.
His family along with those of his 20 craftsmen live on the sales of the sarees amounting to Tk8-Tk10 lakh each month.
He has been practicing the craft of his forefathers. But neither he nor his weavers have any savings.
For the last few weeks, Al Amin has been paying his workers even though the looms are silent because of the countrywide shutdown enforced to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Thus, he ran out of his working capital in a month.
He worries whether he would be able to buy yarns and fabrics and continue his business in the future but that is the least of his worries at the moment.
The artist and weaver is looking for help from his clients for the next meal.
Al Amin is not alone.
More than 1,500 artisans in Rupganj and Sonargaon engaged in Jamdani weaving have plunged into a crisis they have never met before due to the coronavirus outbreak.
They are now using up their working capitals just to live these days.
Al Amin told The Business Standard, "A big part of my capital has been spent to pay wages to my workers. We have not got any government assistance yet."
"I am now living on loans. I do not know how I'll restart my business when the crisis is over."
Jamdani weavers at Rupshi, Bechakur, Khadun Moikuli, Morgakul, Pabankul, Barabo and Kazipara in Rupganj, and Baradi and Borgaon usually are very busy. But now they are just sitting idle.
"We have got government food relief twice after our factories were shut down since March 25. Each time, I got 5 kg of rice, 2 kg of potatoes and one litre of soybean oil, just enough for one day for my family," said artisan Nizam Uddin at Kazipara.
"I do not know what will happen in the future," he added.
Agreeing that the relief was not enough, Hamidullah Khan, a councillor of a ward nearby Kazipara of Tarabo municipality said, "There are 5,000 families in my ward who are in need. But whatever I get covers only 60-65 families a day. I am trying to do my best."
500 batik entrepreneurs spend their capitals just to live a day
The biggest production hub of batik fabrics is located at Banti village in Araihazar upazila of Narayanganj. Some 12-15 thousand workers work in batik production in more than 500 factories.
But now all the factories have stopped, so have their lives.
The batik artisans now worry for their families in the coming days as they have missed a huge sales season like the Pahela Baishakh. If the situation does not improve soon, they are going to miss another season of the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr as well.
Batik clothes weavers are now passing days in hardship after spending their capital to run their families.
Batik businessman Mazharul Islam said he has fallen into a deep crisis for the first time in his 16 years of business. He had managed to build a capital of Tk50 lakh over the years with hard work. But his capital has almost run out.
He had to spend Tk10 lakh in wages for his workers at the factory. Besides, a large portion of it has been spent on factory and shop rents, and family expenses.
"Our main sales depend on Pahela Baishakh and Eid-ul-Fitr. The clothes we produced for Pahela Baishakh remain unsold."
We cannot sell these dresses at any other time as these are special designs for this festival," said another weaver Chand Sarkar.
Around 15,000 artisans in the villages are now unable to get their daily meals, he said, adding that most of them even cannot afford the government's subsidised food.
So far, he could get three packets of food relief, Chand said.
The biggest batik village is situated in Duptara union under the upazila.
"We are running the subsidised food programme for poor people through open market sales. But it is not sufficient for a large number of people," said Shahida Musharraf, chairman at the union.
7 lakh tant weavers face uncertainty
Most of the country's handloom clothes are produced in Pabna and Sirajganj districts.
Around 4.5 lakh weavers work in both power looms and handlooms in Enayetpur, Belkuchi, Shahjadpur, Ullapara, Kamarkhand, Kazipur and Sadar upazilas of Sirajganj district.
On the other hand, there are 3.5 lakh workers in the weaving industry in Kalihati, Basil, Nagpur upazilas of Pabna.
Around three lakh entrepreneurs of the two districts who started their businesses with Tk10,000-Tk10 lakh are now unable to afford any food as their factories remain shut.
They had to live with borrowed money for a few days. But now they cannot go on any longer.
"I usually sell sarees worth Tk2-Tk5 lakh 15 days before the beginning of Ramadan. This year, I sold nothing. I had to use up my capital to survive. I had to pay my permanent workers from that," said Syed Mia, a weaver at Tamai village of Belkuchi upazila.
Weaver Anisur Rahman at Porjona village in Shahjadpur said, "I and my four children work at the loom. But now we find it tough to survive. I have got food relief only two times."
Another artisan Anis of Del Duar at Tangail said, "We cannot go out during this pandemic and we have no work. Now I cannot run my family. If the coronavirus crisis does not end soon, we will have to die of starvation."
Confirming the suffering of the tant weavers, the Sirajganj district administration said they did not have enough food relief to distribute among the weavers.
Deputy Commissioner Dr Mohammad Faruque said, "We have not received the relief under the special package declared by the government yet. We are now helping the poor from Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) programmes and open market sales of essentials."
"We cannot support a family more than twice in a week. We just don't have enough," he added.


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It was picked up by managing director Richard Bunn, and presented by Ian Budsworth of 360 Fleet Solutions.
As Ralph Morton, editor of Business Car Manager explained: “I think it’s important that we recognise the diversity of the companies supplying vehicles and finance to the SME market.
“White Hot Vans does things very differently, with its off beat and humorous marketing, everything from selling vans in pubs to its most recent creation, a Ford Ranger done up in Martini rally colours to celebrate Colin McRae’s title 20 years ago to promote its Ford Ranger offers. They have a boutique offering, and this award recognises that.”
Richard Bunn explained his growing company’s successful approach: “The branding of White Hot Vans has consistently been designed around clear, simple and unbiased advice for SME businesses that is easy to find and pitched at the appropriate level.
“For many businesses the vehicle choice is a rare decision making process and our people have time on their hands to discuss things.
“Although we have an online presence we are accessible and have a comfortable and welcoming customer area to talk vans and finance. We regularly have plumbers dropping in before their day starts for some tea and toast to talk finance lease and even run a Saturday drop-in service so customers don’t have to interrupt their working day.”


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decontrolled Phosphatic and Potassic fertilizers are sold at indicative maximum retail prices. Both the uniform sale price and the indicative maximum retail prices are less than the cost of production, for which the fertilizer companies are compensated by the government.
While officials are not willing to reveal how much partially decontrolling urea will save the exchequer, it should be worth remembering that out of the total budgeted subsidy provision of Rs 67,790 crore for fertilizers, about Rs 43,300 is for urea.
As reported in FE earlier, finance and oil ministry officials are pitching for a complete elimination in diesel under-recoveries, which stood at Rs 4.41/litre on May 16. If the current practice of increasing diesel prices by about 50 paise per month continue, and if there are no major shocks in global crude prices, diesel subsidies, which amounted to Rs 62,837 crore last fiscal, can be completely eliminated within 6-8 months.
The UPA government had raised the cap on subsidized LPG cylinders refills from 9 to 12 on pressure put by the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi. That meant more than 90% of all cylinder refills had to be subsidized. This measure is likely to be rolled back as well.
Policy watchers, however, are cautious. “In theory, this sounds great. Any move that can cut some portion of the subsidies and increase capital spending should be welcomed. But we will have to wait till the end of the fiscal to see if it has actually worked, since actual subsidy payments always exceed budgeted targets,” said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist with Care ratings. “But in case they are able to do such a thing, it will be the best possible situation.”


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Walmart on Centerville road near Elsmere 'reopens' with new features
The Walmart on Centerville Road near Elsmere held a "grand reopening" Friday morning to introduce, among other things, new interactive electronics displays.
The store, which never closed during the transformation, has been undergoing a remodel over the last few weeks.
STORY: Delaware to make a run at landing Amazon's HQ2
he updated electronics department features lower interactive tables. The Centerville Road location is among the first in the area with the updated electronics look. The company is transitioning to this more modern style.
Other new features include an enhanced infants department with strollers at floor level for testing and easier access to everyday essentials like diapers and formula. The Walmart Pickup station is now conveniently located near front of the store, next to the MoneyCenter. Also updated were the tool and home improvement departments. The Centerville store now sells automotive tools and other items that aren't sold at other locations nearby.
The updates also included fresh paint and new floors and signage. The new, wider aisles are meant to improve navigation throughout the store.
Walmart, which had a fiscal year revenue of $486 billion, has 13 locations in Delaware. The company is engaged in a battle for retail supremacy with Amazon. While it amps up online retail efforts, improvements like at the Centerville Road store help modernize Walmart's brick and mortar locations.
Contact Jeff Neiburg at (302) 983-6772 or firstname.lastname@example.org.


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. Today was our regular day off and it was a beautiful 15 deg sunny day , so it looks like spring has come early to Niigata this year. With such fantastic weather we drove out to our community organic farm and weeded our vege patch , racked up the soil, spread a mixture of organic fertilizer over our vege patch , and even put down two new patches as we would like to grow more vegetables this year. Then we covered everything in plastic garden sheets which will come off in a months time , then we can plant out this seasons new organic vegetables. The onions and garlic that we planted late last year are looking really good and have survived our mild winter , they should be ready in June to harvest. Also we would like to say a big thank you to Abe san who helped us this morning. After 3 hours of gardening this morning some pints of Guinness will taste pretty good tonight , after all it is St Patrick's day today !
For the latest news and info from Albannach follow our blog.


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Samsung Electronics America has recycled 12 million pounds of e-waste in 2009. Samsung Direct is the manufacturer’s recycling program, and the program allows consumers to drop off their e-waste at more than 200 centers across the United States.
“Samsung has always been known for our top consumer electronics,” said David Steel, senior vice president of strategic marketing for Samsung Electronics America, in a press release. “Now we are utilizing our expertise in cutting-edge technology to make our products greener, increasing their energy efficiency, as well as improving the manufacturing and distribution processes behind them. Our sustainability commitment is holistic in our 360 degree approach, addressing the impact of our products from creation to discard.”


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Shopping giant Amazon is handing out branded merchandise to its warehouse workers during the coronavirus pandemic after cutting the hazard-pay increase it gave workers.
Amazon employees, speaking anonymously to Business Insider, said that the company had sent the t-shirts to warehouse workers. On the front, the shirt reads “Thanks to you» while the back says «Together, we'll deliver”.
“With states opening up and over 21 cases at our warehouse so far and at least one death at the Indianapolis warehouse, it's a slap in the face,” one worker said.
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“It felt like they are trying to change the narrative that is reflected in the news, as it looks negatively upon the company. While I hate to sound ungrateful for anything, putting a big ‘Thank you' on the shirt was a clear indication they wanted to sway our thoughts. It just didn't feel sincere,” said an employee in Texas.
“Amazon is an economic juggernaut with the world's wealthiest CEO at the helm, surely such a titan can afford to pay his employees a mere two dollars extra,” one worker in Maryland, Virginia said.
We have reached out to Amazon for comment.
This comes as Amazon’s $2-per-hour hazard pay, which warehouse workers have between March and June, is being phased out. “We continue to see heavy demand during this difficult time and the team is doing incredible work for our customers and the community,” an Amazon spokesperson said at the time.
At the end of April, Amazon also ended its unpaid time off policy that it brought in during the coronavirus. The policy let workers leave work without losing their jobs, although they would not be paid and the policy did not cover sick leave.
Amazon has been repeatedly criticised for its response to the coronavirus pandemic, with workers at its distribution centres dying from the deadly virus.
Christian Smalls, a worker at the Staten Island warehouse who was fired after organising a walkout over Amazon’s lacklustre coronavirus protection, said the company is “capitalising at the expense of human life”
Amazon management attempted to smear Smalls as part of its strategy in response to the walkout. “He’s not smart, or articulate, and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position than simply explaining for the umpteenth time how we’re trying to protect workers,” wrote Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky in notes from a meeting which was attended by CEO Jeff Bezos. Zapolsky since said that he “let the emotions draft my words and get the better of me.”
Two other workers, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, were also fired after publicly denouncing the company’s response to the coronavirus leading to Amazon vice president Tim Bray resigning over the “climate of fear” the company was trying to create.
«Firing whistleblowers isn’t just a side-effect of macroeconomic forces, nor is it intrinsic to the function of free markets. It’s evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison,” Bray wrote.
This comes as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos adds $24 billion to his personal fortune while people are locked down during the pandemic, as other billionaires have done, and could soon become the world’s first trillionaire.


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An 'expensive and inconvenient way to heat a property': Millions miss out on cheaper energy by using pre-pay meters
Millions of householders who pay for their gas and electricity using pre-payment meters are getting a raw deal from suppliers, which reserve their best deals for internet-savvy customers who pay by direct debit.
While pre-payers typically pay the same as customers on a standard tariff who settle on receipt of their bill, neither enjoy the same discounts as those who manage their accounts online and pay automatically from their bank accounts.
In addition, energy customers on the meters are often left in the dark about better deals that could cut the cost of their ‘pay as you go’ plans, while those who inherit an unwanted pre-payment device can face a struggle – and high costs – to escape the arrangement.
Dismay: Aidan Holloway inherited a pre-payment meter when he bought his flat
MACHINE GOBBLED MONEY
Aidan Holloway was dismayed to inherit a pre-payment gas meter when he moved into a two-bedroom flat in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, in March this year.
It was only when Aidan, a public relations consultant, and his wife Verity tried unsuccessfully to fire up the boiler that the penny dropped. He says: ‘I didn’t realise when we bought the flat that it had one of these meters.
‘It was a real pain. Straight away I had to rush out to the newsagent and top up the card. I put £40 on the meter but it seemed to gobble up the money in no time. It is an expensive and inconvenient way to heat a property.’
Aidan, 31, contacted his supplier npower to have a standard meter installed, only to be told it would cost him £60. But after The Mail on Sunday intervened on Aidan’s behalf npower waived the fee.
Joy soon turned to misery when the contractor booked to install the meter failed to turn up, blaming IT issues. More delays followed, meaning it took a month to get the new meter installed.
Aidan says: ‘Npower’s customer service is an omnishambles – although it gave me £50 compensation for the delays.
‘I’ll be switching supplier as soon as possible.’
Many of the estimated eight million meters in British homes are imposed on customers – sometimes via a court order – by suppliers to ensure bills are met and debts repaid. But some opt for this type of meter to help with budgeting. Tom Lyon, energy expert at comparison website uSwitch, says: ‘A pre-payment meter is not as cheap as using a conventional credit meter, but it does give absolute control over a household’s energy costs. These customers should not be penalised for being prudent.’
The difference between the best and worst pre-payment tariffs is nearly £200 a year, even though a limited number of suppliers offer ‘pay-as-you-go’ arrangements.
Research by uSwitch shows that the cheapest pre-payment dual-fuel deal for a household with average usage is Ovo Energy’s variable rate, totalling £1,168 a year. That is nearly £200 a year less than Co-operative Energy’s deal, the most expensive at £1,356. And if a customer switched from pay-as-you-go payments with the Co-op to the cheapest direct debit deal on offer from GB Energy, they would shave £486 off their annual energy bill.
However, not everyone can escape pre-payment deals easily. Mark Ridout of comparison service energyhelpline says: ‘In some situations it is possible to get suppliers to install a standard meter, but many on prepayment schemes are not in a position to do so – perhaps because of a bad credit record or being tenants in rented accommodation.’
James Padmore, head of energy at website comparethemarket, adds: ‘Pre-payment customers are often required to cover the costs of changing the meter. This can be more than £60. Given that many are on lower incomes this acts as a double insult.
‘Customers should not be frozen out of the best deals simply because they are on pre-payment meters. Suppliers should offer their cheapest tariffs across all payment options.’
Smary: The days when you fed 50p coins into meters are long gone
One tip for those who face a charge for installing a standard meter is to switch to a pre-payment supplier that does not charge to change meter – then change supplier again.If you switch pre-payment supplier the transfer works in the same way as it does for a credit customer – the meter does not have to be replaced.
You can find a better deal using a comparison service such as uSwitch, energyhelpline or comparethemarket. The new provider will do the rest. Under a voluntary arrangement suppliers let pre-payment customers transfer if a household owes less than £500 for each fuel.
But industry watchdog Ofgem will soon publish proposals addressing the problems faced by many customers when extracting themselves from existing pre-payment arrangements. It plans to make the voluntary practice compulsory.
Npower charges those customers it considers ‘non-vulnerable’ £60 to change meter – applying the levy on ‘a case-by-case basis’. It says the process normally takes about ten days.
Eon, which has 750,000 customers on pre-payment meters, has launched a ‘Smart Pay As You Go’ pilot, which allows pre-payment customers to choose from any of Eon’s tariffs, a move that could save them up to £104 a year – as long as they switch to a smart meter. These are high-tech meters that send exact usage readings automatically to the supplier.
Eon says it does not charge customers moving to a standard meter, as long as they have no debt and pass a credit check. The process takes up to three weeks.
British Gas, EDF Energy, SSE and Scottish Power have similar arrangements to Eon.
FORGET THE JAR OF 50P PIECES: HOW THE BOX NOW WORKS
The days when you fed 50p coins into meters are long gone. Modern pre-payment meters are topped up using a token, key or smart card, which must be loaded at a post office, newsagent or other store.
The meters can be used to pay off debts to a supplier as well as for ongoing gas and electricity usage – with the provider programming either the key or the meter to pay off arrears when it is topped up.
There is usually some emergency credit available – typically £5 – if a household runs out of fuel and can’t top up the meter straight away – this will need to be paid back when they next top up.
The drawbacks – apart from being a costly way to pay for fuel – include being unable to top up when money is short or when you are ill. A pre-payment meter is also inconvenient for customers who live a long way from a retailer offering top-ups.
Lost or faulty cards and keys take time to replace and may result in fees for replacement. Also, households cannot spread the impact of big winter bills through the year.
On the plus side, Ovo Energy recently launched its PAYG+ service, which lets those with pre-payment meters switch to smart meters at no extra cost, but still pay for their fuel in advance, by topping up with a phone app. British Gas is testing a similar scheme for pay-as-you-go customers, where you can also top up online or by phone.
Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, says: ‘Pre-pay customers have been getting a raw deal for too long. They can choose from only a limited number of tariffs and pay more for their energy than direct debit customers. Topping up in store can also be difficult.’
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Debra Messing has teamed up with eBay to make the season brighter for children this year. The online auction giant launched two “Give-A-Toy” charity store fronts this week, and Messing was at the New York store for its opening earlier this week.
Tech savvy shoppers in New York and San Francisco can use their smart phones to donate to Toys for Tots by downloading an eBay mobile app or scanning a QR code. A virtual price tag will pop up ranging in amounts from $2 through $25, which triggers an instant donation to Toys for Tots. Once the donation is made animated toys appear in the storefront and thank the shopper for their generosity.
“It always feels good to give, but I think it is especially gratifying during the holiday season,” Messing told reporters. “I’m really excited eBay and Toys for Tots asked me to help open the “Give-A-Toy Store” here in New York. It’s a fun and interactive way to spread some holiday cheer this year – you can donate toys to kids in need, right from a smartphone.”
Did you know…
You can still shop at the “Give-A-Toy” store even if you don’t live near the two storefront locations by going to www.ebaycom/GiveAToyStore


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BlockchainSpace Lands $2.4M In Strategic Funding To Onboard 20,000 New Guilds In The P2E Metaverse
BlockchainSpace is a blockchain-powered game monetization platform, and this funding will allow them to onboard 20,000 new players in the next six months. This investment could be big for BlockchainSpace because it allows the company to scale its operations significantly.
30 November 2021, SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE, S
Today, BlockchainSpace, a play-to-earn (P2E) guild center, announced a $2.4 million strategic investment round. The money will be used to onboard the next 20,000 guilds globally and drive expansion in the rapidly burgeoning NFT gaming sector, after last month’s seed round.
Crypto.com, Alameda Research (FTX), Kingsway Capital, OkEx Ventures, and Unity Gaming were among the investors in the round, which was headed by Morningstar Ventures.
BlockchainSpace is a metaverse platform that develops tools to help communities of play-to-earn gamers improve their performance, get access to finance, boost their profits, and reach their full potential. Over 2,000 guilds and 545,000 P2E gamers are now served by it.
P2E gaming based on NFT is thriving, with games like Axie Infinity, CryptoBlades, and The Sandbox becoming into full-fledged economies that employ thousands of people. However, the entrance barrier is considerable, with the most popular games needing over a hundred bucks to get started. In exchange for sharing a part of the profits earned, guilds allow novice players, known as scholars, to enter P2E games without any initial expenditure.
Thousands more academics have joined some of the P2E metaverse’s largest guilds, but with size comes increased complexity.
Guild operators are frequently compared to the metaverse’s asset managers. Their day-to-day operations get more complex as their business expands, with the requirement to keep track of assets, cashflow, income and spending, administer numerous budgets, and monitor scholar performance. To put it another way, it’s just like operating a traditional company in every way.
Guilds can grow their activities more easily using BlockchainSpace. It gives guild operators a full platform and community to precisely monitor their players’ performance, onboard new scholars and verify applications, automate cashout requests, and access in-depth statistics and benchmarking across many guilds. Its one-of-a-kind tools and features let guild operators save time and concentrate on growing and increasing performance. Guilds and individual players may both use BlockchainSpace to get the funds they need to expand or create new guilds.
Thousands of ambitious P2E players are begging for a chance to join the metaverse, as interest in the NFT gaming sector grows. The strategic investment round announced today will allow community supporters, long-term backers, and liquidity providers to assist with the onboarding of the next 20,000 guilds and more than 10 million members on BlockchainSpace’s platform.
To stimulate more fast development in the NFT gaming industry, BlockchainSpace will continue to expand its platform to offer additional tools and services for guild owners to govern their guilds, with an emphasis on guild performance monitoring, Guild Data Back, and a Guild Financial Bank.
Early next year, BlockchainSpace will debut its ground-breaking Open Guild Marketplace, which will let guilds and their members to integrate innovative TradeFi and decentralized finance capabilities to spark economic potential. In addition, the platform plans to launch additional automated credit rating and loan issuing services in 2022, as well as its Ecosystem Fund.
a brief description of BlockchainSpace
Play-to-earn guilds may grow in the metaverse thanks to BlockchainSpace. BlockchainSpace creates tools to empower gaming communities and offers academies to help game developers find new revenue streams. The goal of BlockchainSpace is to empower the next generation of earn-to-play players and guild owners to become successful businesses by providing them the necessary digital tools and funding.


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With over 160 exhibitors and the biggest conference line-up in the event’s history, next week’s POST-EXPO in Hamburg, Germany, is set to be the best ever. Spanning four full days for the first time and with 150+ speakers confirmed, the event promises a comprehensive line-up of content and industry expertise, creating a truly inspirational environment for the world’s postal industry leaders and experts.
On the show floor, the Expo will be brimming with next-generation technologies for the last mile, plus all the latest parcel delivery and returns concepts, sorting centre innovations, logistics management, optimisation and route planning, plus digital marketing and e-commerce technology, and so much more.
Meanwhile, the conference will see specialist sessions covering e-commerce and last-mile delivery, logistics, digital disruption, strategic directions, autonomous futures, and expanding financial services, to name just a few. The Universal Postal Union (UPU) conference will feature special sessions on postal operators and the impact of personal data privacy regulation, dealing with dangerous and prohibited goods, and a special invitation-only communications workshop for postal operators.
The exhibition is open from Tuesday morning on October 9, through to Thursday late afternoon, while the conference is running for the extra day, starting Monday, October 8 for four days. Wednesday, October 10 is UPU day, with a unique conference programme arranged by the UPU, while the Postal Technology International Awards for innovation and excellence will take place later in the day, accompanied by a drinks party in the exhibition hall – open to all visitors.
First staged in Hamburg in October 1997, the 2018 show is ‘coming home’ for its 21st edition – to read more on what to see and do, please see our full preview.


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Former Google executive John Giannandrea is migrating to Apple.
Apple has hired John Giannandrea, Google’s former chief of search and artificial intelligence (AI), as part of the company’s efforts to boost its AI arm.
The New York Times reported that Giannandrea will run Apple’s AI and machine-learning strategy and become one of 16 executives directly reporting to CEO Tim Cook.
A commitment to privacy
In an email sent to staff, Cook said: “Our technology must be infused with the values we all hold dear. John shares our commitment to privacy and our thoughtful approach as we make computers even smarter and more personal.”
Giannandrea joined Google in 2010 following the search giant’s acquisition of Metaweb, a firm where he was serving as chief technology officer. He is a machine-learning expert and it is reported that Apple hopes he will aid it in its mission to catch up with competitors in areas such as natural language processing and computer vision.
Giannandrea is said to have left Google on Monday (2 April), according to The Information. His departure comes two years after former search chief Amit Singhal left the company.
Apple lagging behind
Many analysts view Apple as a straggler when it comes to large tech companies’ AI and machine-learning standards. Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft employ huge numbers of researchers working across a number of areas, and are heavily involved in the wider global AI community.
Users have often spoken of what they view as Siri’s inferior quality when compared to Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa. Apple’s smart speaker – the HomePod – has received mixed reviews since its launch last year.
While Apple wants to explore building services with neural networks, it wants to do so without compromising the privacy of user data.
Jeff Dean, co-founder of leading AI research lab Google Brain, will now be in charge of Google’s AI team.
Giannandrea’s expertise is a major coup for Apple. Machine-learning experts are in high demand in Silicon Valley, with salaries often exceeding eight figures.


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Gm vehicles $1500 option now mandatory purchase
Get ready to drop an extra 15 hundred bucks if you buy a new general motors vehicle.
The manufacturer is now making a 3-year subscription to "on-star standard."
the service known for offering navigation services... And helping to locate stolen vehicles.
For a while now, this feature was already installed.
But... Subscribing to the service was optional.
New vehicles still list it as an option... And buyers can opt out of it.
However... They'll still have to pay the 15-hundred dollar fee.
The company says it views the service as a big revenue driver.


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Kaleidescape hasn t had it easy for the past few years, plagued by legal issues and business model changes that never quite worked out.
Now it seems the company s days are coming to an end, as the company laid off all staff and closed its doors today, according to a forum message posted Sunday night.
While things seem grim, the company hasn t entirely given up hope, as company CEO Cheena Srinivasan is still actively looking for a buyer for the company.
So far, however, he hasn t been successful.
I never planned for this day, Srinivasan told CEPro.
When Kaleidescape first launched as a company, it was with a type of product that hadn t yet been invented: a server that could rip the user s DVDs, store them, and make them available to watch, meaning no more manually switching discs.


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The 20kg bags of rice stacked on ceiling-high shelving units look like any other but are the first to arrive in the West Yorkshire depot from Vietnam as the food price shocks fuelling inflation force companies to find cheaper ingredients.
Jason Bull, one of the directors of Eurostar Commodities, which imports rice and flour destined for restaurant chains, supermarket suppliers and caterers, says the Brighouse-based company is facing its biggest challenge in nearly 30 years.
“Brexit, Covid, the cost of living crisis, and the war in Ukraine, are all having an impact on the supply chain in different ways, and causing food insecurity,” says Bull.
“People are ripping up contracts and saying the price has just gone up … if you want it, you’re going to have to pay more. This is the hardest, most turbulent period for our business in its history.”
With UK inflation now at 9.1%, driven up by soaring fuel and food costs, Bull said the pressure on the family-run company is still increasing which is likely to mean more pain for households. Often, the reason prices rise for consumers is because businesses facing rising costs, pass them on.
“Fuel is still going up, so that’s increasing our costs, and shipping rates are going up again too, so we’re not out of the woods yet,” says Bull. “We’re going to see more inflation; I think it will probably top out at 12 or 13%.”
The company is passing higher costs on to its customers with the extra time involved in Brexit paperwork, another management worry. “We work on tight margins and high volumes,” says Bull, who adds that it “has never been harder to make sure food is in the supply chain and to get it in a timely manner and at the right price”.
Rice, along with pasta and bread, was one of the budget foods recent Office for National Statistics’ figures highlighted as increasing in price at a much faster rate than general inflation, with the cheapest rice option now costing 15% more than a year ago.
Supermarket shoppers spend about £220m a year on rice with the overall price per kilo up 0.8% over the last three months versus 2021, according to NielsenIQ Scantrack. The headline figure masks big price moves up and down for different varieties. Basmati, which makes up 60% of the market, is up 3.7% with risotto rice also increasing by a similar amount. The price of brown rice is up over 13% while Thai has fallen more than 10%.
Eurostar Commodities usually buys short-grain rice, used to make the sushi sold in supermarkets, from Italy, Europe’s largest producer. However the price per tonne is now “crazy”, Bull says, due to the hit to harvests caused by severe drought.
It used to be able to buy rice on a 12-month contract but its longest agreement is now under two months. “You will probably be able to buy Italian rice this year but the price is going to be sky high. The millers say they’ve never seen a market like it in 40 to 50 years.”
Last spring Italian white rice reached the milestone of $1,000 (£817) per tonne but it did not stop there. Weather issues combined with higher input costs like fertiliser, saw the price eclipse $2,000 last month. Over the same period the cost of Vietnamese white rice dropped by a fifth to about $400 per tonne, according to Mintec.
Bull has just returned from Vietnam, the world’s fifth largest producer of rice, where he toured some of the fields and mills belonging to the UK-approved suppliers it is now using. “There is going to be a lot less rice within Europe and that’s going to increase demand for the far east supply,” he says. “Vietnam only grows a certain amount of EU standard rice so if you’re not contract farming and booking it, it ain’t going to be there.”
Long-grain rice is also a problem . The company usually sources from Spain but farmers there have also been hit by drought and extreme temperatures. Come autumn he predicts it will have no rice for export, a view that explains the huge white sacks emblazoned with stars and stripes piled on the warehouse floor. Even though it has come all the way from the US it still works out cheaper, Bull says.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s monthly index, which tracks changes in the price of commonly traded food commodities, showed international rice prices up for a fifth consecutive month in May.
Global rice production is bountiful, with a record harvest of 514.6m tonnes predicted, but the high cost of wheat and maize means it is in demand as a substitute for animal feed, says Zanna Aleksahhina, a market analyst at data firm Mintec.
Eurostar Commodities also imports specialist flours as well as ingredients such as canned tomatoes and pasta sauce that end up in ready meals and restaurant dishes. Prices are going up for these products too, with wheat flour costing 50% more than before the war.
The impact of this is visible on supermarket shelves where the price per kilo of plain and self-raising flour is up 9.6% and 7.4%, according to the NielsenIQ Scantrack data.
“We will have to see what the new [wheat] crop brings,” says Bull. “A lot depends on which countries are going to export but if nothing drastic changes … prices are going to remain firm.”


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The mutual fund industry in India is experiencing rapid growth, projected at a CAGR of 21.5% by 2027. Industry AUM milestones, from ₹10 trillion in 2014 to ₹46.38 trillion by July 2023, underscore this expansion. The sector achieved 10 crore folios in May 2021, with 15.14 crore accounts as of July 31, 2023. Regulatory support, equity-linked saving schemes, and technological advancements shape this growth narrative.
However, despite significant potential, India’s AUM-to-GDP ratio at 16% lags behind the global average of 75%, highlighting prospects for future expansion. Internet penetration rate in India went up to nearly around 50 per cent in 2022, from just about 4 per cent in 2007, however more than 80 per cent AUM still come from the top 30 cities in the country. India’s demographic advantages drive middle-income bracket households to explore mutual funds for financial planning, though only 2% of the population invests.
Given this as a background, the BFSI Committee of the Bombay Chamber will be organising the Mutual Fund Conclave 2023, Titled ‘Charting Tomorrow’s Portfolio’ which will delve deeper into the present and future scenario of the Mutual Fund market, its penetration beyond the top tier cities, what today’s investors are looking for, along with navigating the regulatory scenario.


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New York State Common Retirement Fund lessened its stake in shares of Kroger Co (NYSE:KR) by 2.4% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 2,277,548 shares of the company’s stock after selling 55,456 shares during the quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund owned about 0.26% of Kroger worth $45,688,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
Other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. IHT Wealth Management LLC raised its position in Kroger by 122.1% in the second quarter. IHT Wealth Management LLC now owns 2,770 shares of the company’s stock worth $376,000 after acquiring an additional 1,523 shares in the last quarter. Dupont Capital Management Corp purchased a new position in Kroger in the second quarter worth $105,000. Howe & Rusling Inc. purchased a new position in Kroger in the third quarter worth $103,000. Loring Wolcott & Coolidge Fiduciary Advisors LLP MA increased its position in shares of Kroger by 497.2% in the second quarter. Loring Wolcott & Coolidge Fiduciary Advisors LLP MA now owns 5,273 shares of the company’s stock valued at $129,000 after buying an additional 4,390 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Mountain Capital Investment Advisors Inc purchased a new position in shares of Kroger in the second quarter valued at $128,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.10% of the company’s stock.
Kroger Co (NYSE:KR) traded up $0.19 on Thursday, hitting $26.41. The company had a trading volume of 8,174,200 shares, compared to its average volume of 12,349,835. The company has a current ratio of 0.85, a quick ratio of 0.31 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 2.11. The firm has a market capitalization of $23,323.27, a price-to-earnings ratio of 13.52, a P/E/G ratio of 3.46 and a beta of 0.92. Kroger Co has a fifty-two week low of $19.69 and a fifty-two week high of $36.44.
Kroger (NYSE:KR) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 30th. The company reported $0.44 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.40 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $27.75 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $27.48 billion. Kroger had a return on equity of 28.60% and a net margin of 1.31%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.41 earnings per share. research analysts forecast that Kroger Co will post 2.02 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, December 1st. Investors of record on Wednesday, November 15th were paid a dividend of $0.125 per share. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.89%. The ex-dividend date was Tuesday, November 14th. Kroger’s payout ratio is currently 29.76%.
In other Kroger news, Director Jorge P. Montoya sold 10,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $26.98, for a total value of $269,800.00. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, VP Carin L. Fike sold 1,538 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $25.61, for a total value of $39,388.18. Following the completion of the sale, the vice president now directly owns 25,956 shares in the company, valued at $664,733.16. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.85% of the stock is owned by company insiders.
A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on KR. Oppenheimer restated a “hold” rating and issued a $26.00 price target on shares of Kroger in a research report on Monday. Moffett Nathanson began coverage on Kroger in a research report on Monday. They issued a “buy” rating for the company. Pivotal Research set a $30.00 price target on Kroger and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, December 2nd. BMO Capital Markets set a $29.00 price target on Kroger and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, December 1st. Finally, Telsey Advisory Group raised their price target on Kroger from $24.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 1st. Eighteen analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Kroger has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $29.16.
COPYRIGHT VIOLATION WARNING: “New York State Common Retirement Fund Has $45.69 Million Stake in Kroger Co (KR)” was reported by Stock Observer and is the property of of Stock Observer. If you are accessing this news story on another publication, it was illegally copied and reposted in violation of international trademark & copyright laws. The original version of this news story can be read at https://www.thestockobserver.com/2017/12/07/new-york-state-common-retirement-fund-has-45-69-million-stake-in-kroger-co-kr.html.
The Kroger Co (Kroger) manufactures and processes food for sale in its supermarkets. The Company operates supermarkets, multi-department stores, jewelry stores and convenience stores throughout the United States. As of January 28, 2017, it had operated approximately 4,000 owned or leased supermarkets, convenience stores, fine jewelry stores, distribution warehouses and food production plants through divisions, subsidiaries or affiliates.
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Corporate suppliers emit tons of greenhouse gases. Trying to help reduce them — on behalf of another company — is complicated.
Depending on the sector, supply chain emissions are an average of 11.4 times larger than a company’s operational emissions, according to a 2022 report on supply chain sustainability metrics from sustainability data firm CDP. As of that analysis, just 41 percent of companies reporting to CDP disclosed emissions for supply chains — part of their "Scope 3" impact — and only 14 percent of corporate targets included this category.
The outlook is brighter if you consult the latest progress report from the Science Based Targets initiative, the organization many multinational companies use to set and validate their science-based targets for reducing emissions enough to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global temperature increases below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Ninety-six percent of the roughly 1,100 companies that had validated targets as of year end 2022 covered Scope 3, SBTi reported.
Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, software firm Atlassian and healthcare tech maker Philips are three companies helping their suppliers set science-based targets and work toward lowering emissions, a process that requires close engagement with suppliers.
Here are steps they’re taking.
Set goals, guide suppliers
Atlassian’s commitment is to get 65 percent of its suppliers (by emission) for goods and services it purchases to set science-based targets by fiscal year 2025, which ends July 31, 2025. As of its latest sustainability report, only 6.9 percent had done so.
"It’s time to hustle," said Atlassian chief sustainability officer Jessica Hyman. "That’s the attitude we’re taking this year."
To increase awareness, Atlassian includes its science-based targets requirements in purchasing contracts and negotiations. It published supplier guidelines and created free resources that show suppliers the process of setting targets, in collaboration with the Business Council on Climate Change.
Atlassian is also offering consulting to its 10 highest-emitting suppliers, based on spend, to help them with the target-setting process.
There are plenty of challenges. Suppliers change every year — not just the names but how much is spent. Atlassian’s biggest supplier is Amazon Web Services and its parent company, Amazon does not currently plan to commit to SBTi validation. Atlassian’s team is working with AWS to address this, but Hyman said no resolution is in sight.
Pool purchasing power
One strategy working well for AstraZeneca is collaborating with companies that share its suppliers to achieve common goals. "It’s about getting a coalition of the willing," said Robert Williams, procurement sustainability director at AstraZeneca.
For example, AztraZeneca is a founding partner of Energize, a program funded by pharmaceutical companies that want their supply chains to run on renewable energy. As of December, the initiative included 500 suppliers that work with the sponsoring companies, which include GSK, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Roche and Sanofi. The effort has helped organize five "buyer cohorts" that plan to pool their purchasing power to negotiate renewable power purchase agreements. Those companies represent an aggregate electricity demand of more than 2 terawatt-hours.
AstraZeneca’s commitment is to reduce absolute Scope 3 emissions by 50 percent by 2030, compared with a 2019 baseline year. As of its latest sustainability progress report, for 2022, it reported an increase of 8.6 percent. Getting suppliers to set science-based targets will be necessary to achieve absolute emissions reductions, Williams said.
Teach suppliers to teach their suppliers
AstraZeneca and Philips are helping their largest, direct suppliers transition to net-zero business practices and providing them with resources and data that, in turn, help those suppliers directly engage with their own suppliers.
The result is a "cascade" that flows through industries more holistically, said Robert Metzke, senior vice president and global head of sustainability at Philips. "Using global supply networks, not just chains, is a very feasible and scalable way that goes much faster than negotiations," he said.
Philips provides guidance on energy audits and "train the trainer" programs, so that suppliers can engage their own.
It aims to have 50 percent of its supply chain set science-based targets by 2025; so far, it has achieved 46 percent participation, according to Metzke.


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Marketers have yet another way to email their customers through Marketo Inc.’s latest tool, Dialog Edition. The best part? Dialog Edition sends emails automatically on their behalf.
Yesterday, Calif-.based Marketo announced it’d be rolling out Dialog Edition to help marketers get into more personalized interactions with their customers using automation. Marketers can launch campaigns that send potential customers relevant content, once their email addresses have been captured.
After watching each customer’s individual behaviour, and checking to see which content they end up looking at, Dialog Edition automatically then moves the customer to a different content stream if that content is more relevant to them. That’s more effective than requiring marketers to have to manually move customers across content streams.
Using Marketo’s Customer Engagement Engine, Dialog Edition also ensures potential customers don’t receive the same emails twice, and it safeguards against sending too many emails, too often – an often-repeated gripe among email recipients.
What’s also handy is that marketers won’t need to ask programmers to help them send emails on a mass scale. Marketers can watch visitor activity and respond in real-time, making sure they don’t miss an opportunity. And when potential leads visit a Web site, read their past emails, or check out a brand’s social network, Dialog Edition can automatically send them a follow-up email. None of that requires tech support’s help, as marketers can just drag and drop campaigns using Marketo.
And of course, Dialog Edition heavily relies on customer data. It uses a marketing database that stores information on customers’ demographics and past behaviour. As marketers begin to learn more about their customers, Dialog Edition builds segmented lists, so they can reach customers with better automated emails. Marketers can also access Marketo’s data analytics for an indication of their ROI, ensuring they can see standard metrics like email opens and click-through. They’re also able to see an Engagement Score, giving them a sense of how their campaigns are performing. Plus, marketers can read a number of reports, some of which feature data visualizations.
The service is also integrated across Marketo’s social products, allowing marketers to publish new Facebook pages, create social polls, run contests, and launch referral campaigns. Marketers can also access Marketing Nation, Marketo’s network of about 150 partners and more than 30,000 marketers. The online community allows them to share ideas and best practices in interacting with customers.
“Marketers are facing a new digital world where consumers are drowning in marketing messages,” said Sanjay Dholakia, Marketo’s chief marketing officer, in a statement.
“Marketers know they need to break through this noise, but their efforts to do so are often limited by email service providers, which force marketers into a world of impersonal, batch communications. The Dialog Edition offers a solution, empowering email marketers to build automated campaigns that create long-term, personal relationships.”
Dialog Edition will be released on Oct. 25, with pricing starting at $2,995 a month.
Check out this video from Marketo, which gives tips and tricks on email marketing:


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In the continued quest for a bigger share of television ad budgets, digital media companies put a lot of time and effort into this year’s Digital Content NewFronts.
With all the industry momentum seen in significant year-over-year growth in digital video buying, the NewFronts stand for much more than just another industry event. Digital media platforms now look forward to making long lasting impressions in the weeks to come. So, one would hope that the events could demonstrate the market’s maturity and continue to shape how digital video will help brands meet their objectives.
While a step in the right direction, this year’s NewFronts fell short of this desired outcome. Fortunately, time is on our side to work toward fixing the model.
Showcase the industry's value. The NewFronts should serve as an opportunity for digital publishers to shine a spotlight on the industry’s progress in technology, consumer understanding, and programming concepts. But instead, time was spent raffling off prizes and focusing on late night “celebration” with little demonstration of video innovation.
This year’s NewFronts lacked engaging information, and from my experience, served as a festival for a lot of sizzle without the appropriate amount of steak. And unfortunately, during all of the “celebration,” the opportunity to discuss the issues affecting the marketplace was lost. While one could argue that TV’s traditional Upfronts are no different, TV has the benefit of established credibility given it has repeatedly shown to be effective branding and communication channel.
Stop the negative selling. It’s probably time for digital to move away from disparaging TV as a means of garnering TV dollars. Downplaying the value of TV advertising lacks sensibility, because while digital is commanding an increasing share of ad dollars, the growth is not attributable to a decrease in TV spend, which continues to rise. Even with TV spending topping $70 billion for the first time last year, many of the presentations at the NewFronts tried to position digital as a stronger alternative to TV. If the thought leaders who are supposed to be pushing this industry segment forward are actively talking about how TV is not measurable, they’ll continue to wait for “TV-like” dollars.
Focus on measurement. A compelling reason that money is not moving from TV to digital is because there’s not a single common data thread merging all the screens: TV, online video, and mobile video. This common data thread should be the focus of every digital media company and corresponding NewFront presentation going forward, until it gets sorted out. Rather than promote a David and Goliath tale, it would be more beneficial to talk about how we can work together to make video advertising measurement uniform and understandable, whether it’s on one screen or across all three.
While the NewFronts are designed to pique advertiser interest in new and unique content offerings, as an industry we cannot realistically ask marketers to devote millions of dollars to a platform without establishing meaningful success benchmarks. And that does not even touch on advertisers’ continued concerns about finding good content that actually delivers real scale, which is well-illustrated by the fact that two properties, Hulu and YouTube, account for about half of the $1.8 billion video ad market.
If digital properties want to change how advertisers perceive digital video, we need to bring more sophisticated thinking and thoughtful selling into the space. We’re not trying to beat TV at its own game; we’re trying to prove that digital video is a viable platform to drives brand awareness and recall, not just generate clicks. We can save the NewFronts by taking more time to educate the market, highlighting technological advancements, and ultimately narrowing the measurement gap that is impeding the growth of digital video.


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If your kids are begging for tech, the iPad might just top their holiday wish-list.
According to Nielsen, which conducted a survey in October to see which tech products American kids want through the beginning of next year, Apple's tablet sat at the top of a 17-item list, with 31 percent of children between the ages of 6 and 12 saying they want to get their hands on the device.
A computer and Apple's iPod Touch tied for second, with 29 percent of children saying they wanted those products. Nintendo's DS took the fourth spot with 25 percent of kids eyeing the portable gaming device.
Sony's PlayStation 3, any (non-iPhone) smartphone, and a mobile phone all tied for fifth place with 21 percent of kids having interest in those products this year. The Apple iPhone, a television, and therounded out the top 10, each with 20 percent of children's interest.
An e-reader was the least popular gift this year, ranking 17th, with just 11 percent of kids saying they wanted one.
Nielsen also found out what youths 13 and up are coveting.
Among that group, a computer led the way with 20 percent desiring a PC or Mac. A television and a (non-iPhone) smartphone tied for the second spot with 19 percent. Apple's iPad, a Blu-ray player, and an e-reader took the next three spots with 18 percent, 17 percent, and 15 percent of teens showing interest, respectively.
The Nintendo Wii ranked seventh among teens with 15 percent saying they wanted one. It was followed by the iPhone and PlayStation 3, each with votes from 13 percent of teens.
Sony's PlayStation Portable was the least-desired tech product among teenagers, ranking 17th, with just 5 percent of showing interest in it.
Nielsen's study follows a similar survey released last month by the Duracell Toy Report. According to that survey,of kids between the ages of 5 and 16 want an iPhone 4, iPod Touch, or iPad this holiday season.


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Would you eat a Lidl kangaroo steak? Exotic meat soars in popularity because it's half the price of beef
- Budget supermarket claims the meat is both nutritious and inexpensive
- 'Deluxe' 300g steak of two steaks costs just £3.99 - a steak costs up to £9
- Wild kangaroos are being culled in Australia where they are seen as a pest
- Animal welfare campaigners are furious and insist the trade is cruel
It certainly beats throwing another prawn on the barbie.
Diners with a taste for the exotic can now hop down to Lidl and stock up on kangaroo steaks.
The budget supermarket claims roo meat, which it introduced last month, is both nutritious and inexpensive.
But animal welfare campaigners are furious and insist the trade in kangaroos is cruel.
New tastes:Budget supermarket chain Lidl claims kangaroo meat is both nutritious and inexpensive
A Lidl ‘Deluxe’ 300g pack of two steaks costs £3.99, while the equivalent weight of lean fillet beef steak costs up to £9.
The number of wild kangaroos has surged in recent years and many Australians see them as a pest because they damage crops.
As a result, mass culls are expected to slaughter almost six million this year, a huge increase on the two million killed in 2011.
Many of the shot animals will end up on supermarket shelves in Britain.
But wildlife campaigners Viva say the cull is cruel and have urged shoppers to boycott kangaroo meat and lobby Lidl to get them to stop selling it.
campaigns manager, Justin Kerswell, said: ‘Lidl are making a cheap buck
by selling dead wildlife to misguided, thrill-seeking customers.
‘The novelty value of so-called “exotic meats” pales when you take into account the suffering and sheer destruction this unsustainable business causes. Kangaroos are not farmed, they are wild animals that are hunted and shot at night in the vast outback away from the scrutiny of the public.
‘What makes this vile trade even worse are the hundreds of thousands of little victims, the baby and adolescent joeys. Pouch young will be pulled from their dying mother and smashed about the head.’
However Lidl insisted that the meat was popular and healthy, while it rejected allegations of cruelty. A spokesman said: ‘The kangaroo steaks have sold phenomenally well.
‘They are considered a very healthy alternative to red meats – they possess many nutritious benefits such as being low in cholesterol and fat and are high in protein, iron, zinc and conjugated linoleic acid, which has antioxidant properties and can reduce blood pressure.’
‘We take animal welfare very seriously and only source products that meet high standards of food safety and hygiene.
‘Over 75 per cent of the commercial kangaroo harvest are male animals. Kangaroo meat is sold in virtually all Australian supermarkets and to thousands of restaurants and is not regarded as a “novelty meat”.’
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Who determines what is true or false on social media?
Good morning.“Quibi cannot simply wind down its business, send its investors hundreds of millions of dollars and sell its stolen technology to a third party…” – Eko confirmed that it will continue its lawsuit against a winded down Quibi.
In today’s edition:
Bamboo, a Flutterwave merchant, gives you unrestricted access to over 3,000 stocks listed on the Nigerian stock exchange and U.S. stock exchanges, right from your mobile phone or computer. With as little as $20, you can create and fund your Bamboo account with your Dollar or Naira cards and through bank transfers. Start buying and selling shares or stock bundles (called Exchange Traded Funds) in just a few taps, begin here.
“We are aware that Facebook’s automated systems
were incorrectly flagging content in support of #EndSARS, and for this we are deeply sorry. This issue has since been resolved, and we apologize for letting down our community in such a time of need.” – A Facebook Company Spokesperson
Facebook often gets short shrift….I would know.
In yesterday’s newsletter, I inferred that Facebook was allowing the Nigerian Army to dictate the truth of what was going on in Nigeria.
The truth is a little more tame.
In an email to TechCabal, Facebook clarified that its autonomous systems flagged the #EndSARS posts posted on its platform yesterday.
The company says it has now corrected this error. It will mean that Facebook could look a little
different and you will now begin to see some of the information to help you know what’s going on in Nigeria.
My takeaway: content moderation is tricky but leaps in logic are even less cool.
How does Facebook verify information at a time when fake news is a global problem?
This is not to say that fake news and misinformation are new problems. Instead, the reason we now talk about fake news so often is that social media platforms help misinformation travel faster.
For social media companies, it means that they have a responsibility to ensure that their platforms do not become spaces for misinformation.
It’s a tougher job than it sounds and this week, The BackEnd lets us look under the hood of the vehicle that is fact-checking.
The BackEnd uses a recent
example to help us understand the sometimes wonky world of fact-checking.
On Wednesday, Nigerian internet users had their posts on police brutality flagged as fake news
The article Instagram provided to support the fact-check was written on October 19, a day before protesters were shot in Lekki
The fact-check article focused on analysing a CNN news chyron about “two deadly viruses killing Nigerians.”
Apparently, some people (in the US) inferred there was an outbreak of SARS – the influenza virus – in Nigeria based on the CNN chyron.
The Fact Checkers. There’s one big reason you should read this: it answers the important question of who platforms rely on to determine what is verified or false.
We started the week with news that South Africa’s broadcasting regulator is thinking about licences for streaming services like Netflix.
South Africa’s Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) is making that conversation broader, detailing plans for digital taxes on digital economic activities.
What the PBO said: “The global discourses to rethink the allocation of taxation rights has intensified. South Africa taxes consumption through VAT, but not income of digital economic activities.
Who is saying “I called it!“ Deloitte. In this article they published in August, they predicted that South Africa would be talking about digital taxes really soon.
What other African countries are talking about digital taxes?Kenya and Nigeria.
Big changes are coming to Whatsapp business. Facebook will roll out three new additions to its instant messaging app as it targets the 50 million businesses that use the app.
In-chat shopping: while millions of people already use Whatsapp for business to speak to customers, in-chat shopping takes things up a notch.
Business owners will now be able to sell products inside Whatsapp via Facebook shops, an online store Facebook launched in May.
Outside Facebook Shop, Facebook will make it possible for merchants to add “buy” buttons in other places that will take shoppers to WhatsApp chats to complete the purchase.
Facebook Hosting Service: According to Techcrunch, “the idea here appears that it is specifically aimed at selling hosting services
to the kind of SMBs who already use Facebook and WhatsApp messaging, who either already use hosting services for their online assets, whether that be their online stores or other things, or are finding themselves now needing to for the first time, now that business is all about being “online.”
Pricing: Whatsapp for business has been largely free since it launched. But with a raft of new features, it will now be a paid service with different pricing levels.
What isn’t yet clear is how much the service will cost and what each pricing level will provide.
Want to understand what these new features will mean for small businesses? Go deeper here.
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Like the uptick in India’s GDP, India’s carmakers too are reporting improved sales numbers in the month gone by. From the looks of it, the buzz is gradually getting back into the passenger vehicle (PV) market and the improved sales numbers in November 2017 are proof of that. Nonetheless, the numbers are to be looked at in the context of a year-ago low base and a tough November 2016 when the industry and the country was hit by the big sales speedbreaker: demonetisation.
Maruti Suzuki India, which controls the fortunes of the PV industry, reported sales of 144,297 units (+14.3%) and it looks well set to notch its best-ever sales for a fiscal year. In FY2017, the company had sold a total of 1,568,603 units (domestic + exports). Given the current pace of its sales, Maruti should easily surpass this number. With four months of FY2018 still to go, the company has sold a total of 1,187,735 units (+14.6%). As is known, the company is gunning for 2 million sales annually by the year 2020. And it has 2.5 million sales in its crosshairs by FY2023.
For Maruti, its quintet of compact cars (Swift, Celerio, Ignis, Baleno and Dzire) and utility vehicles (Gypsy, Ertiga, S-Cross and Vitara Brezza) have helped overall numbers. At 65,447 units sold (November 2016: 49,431), the five cars posted 32.4 percent year-on-year growth while the UVs, with 23,072 units, clocked 34 percent YoY growth (November 2016: 17,215).
Sales for the entry-level hatchback duo of the Alto and Wagon R, which sold 38,204 units were flat (November 2016: 38,886). If there is a growing concern for Maruti, then it would the declining sales of the Ciaz premium sedan. In November 2017, the Ciaz sold a total of 4,009 units, down a sizeable 26.2 percent (November 2016: 5,443). Bringing up the rear are the two vans, the Omni and the Eeco which together sold 13,565 units, up 10.8 percent (November 2016: 12,238).
Hyundai Motor India, the No. 2 passenger vehicle player, sold 44,008 units in November, which marks 10 percent YoY growth (November 2016: 40,016). Its top performers across segments include the Grand i10, Elite i20 and the Creta SUV, all having put up a good show in their respective segments, just as they did in the recent past. Also, the third-generation Hyundai Verna sedan, launched a few months ago in August, is garnering good numbers for the company, having sold a cumulative 15,534 units in just over two months until October 2017.
According to Rakesh Srivastava, director, sales and marketing, “Hyundai’s volumes of 44,008 units is a growth of 10 percent with strong performance of the newly launched bestseller next-generation Verna along with Grand i10, Elite i20 and Creta. Due to strong pull of festive demand on the strength of a buoyant rural market, we hope to build on this positive momentum with cumulative retail sales of 200,000 units for the September to December 2017 period. We have also strengthened our export with first despatch of 2,022 units of made-in-India Vernas to Middle-East markets from November 2017.”
Tata Motors is on a roll. The company’s passenger vehicle division sold 17,157 units, which marks smart YoY growth of 35 percent (November 2016: 12,736), essentially led by the strong growth momentum of new-generation Tata cars like the Tiago, Hexa, Tigor and the Nexon.
To meet the growing demand for the Nexon compact SUV, Tata Motors has ramped up its production and earlier this week rolled out the 10,000th Nexon from its Ranjangaon facility. Cumulative PV sales in the domestic market for the April-November 2017 period are 115,049 units, a growth of 13 percent (April-November 2016: 101,712).
Mahindra & Mahindra has made the most of a buoyant November. The company PV segment (which includes UVs, cars and vans) sold 16,030 vehicles as against 13,198 vehicles during November 2016, a growth of 21 percent.
Commenting on the monthly performance, Rajan Wadhera, president, Automotive Sector, M&M, said, “We are happy to be in a positive growth phase for November 2017, which is usually a lean period after the festive season. Our passenger and small commercial vehicles growth for the month of November has been very encouraging. We expect our growth momentum to continue on the back of some recent refresh launches as well as the positivity of our product portfolio.”
Toyota Kirloskar Motor sold a total of 12,734 units in the domestic market in November 2017, a YoY increase of 13 percent (November 2016: 11,309). Commenting on the monthly sales, N Raja, director and senior VP (Sales & Marketing) said, “November has been promising for us with double-digit growth. TKM has sustained a positive growth since last three months. With maximum utilisation of Plant 1 and maintaining lean inventory, we are trying to reduce the waiting period of the Innova and Fortuner, which continue to witness strong demand in the market. The Etios Liva has also done really well this month and has positively contributed towards the overall domestic sales growth. We expect the positive trend in customer demand to continue in the year-end sales as well.”
Honda Cars India is also on a high, having registered monthly domestic sales of 11,819 units in November 2017, a handsome 47 percent YoY growth (November 2016: 8,029). For the fiscal’s first eight months, cumulative sales total 117,322 units, up 19 percent, against 98,451 units in April-November 2016.
The WR-V was the best-seller for Honda with 3,521 units, followed by the popular City (3,315), Jazz (2,039), Amaze (1,976), BR-V (793), Brio (154) and CR-V (21)
Commenting on the sales, Yoichiro Ueno, president and CEO, Honda Cars India, “Last year Honda Cars India’s sales in November were severely affected by demonetisation. Although November volumes this year have shown improvement over last year, the market is still to recover fully from the GST-related changes affecting consumers at large. On a cumulative basis, HCIL sales have grown by 19 percent, backed by strong performance of our models across markets. It gives us the confidence that we will have good growth in this fiscal year.
Ford India displayed an enthusiastic performance with great boost coming in from its newly introduced EcoSport facelift compact SUV launched on November 9. The company registered total domestic sales of 7,777 units, posting growth of 13.10 percent (November 2016: 6,876).
According to Anurag Mehrotra, president and managing director, Ford India, ”November was all about the new EcoSport. Our fun, stylish, powerful and connected compact SUV is winning the hearts and minds of customers, not only with its introductory price but the whole host of features. We are confident of maintaining this sales momentum getting into 2018, despite macroeconomic indicators suggesting volatility in inflation and crude prices impacting the industry growth over the near-medium term.”