Realty, auto & pharma aid indices

Mon, 8 Mar 11:30 am

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   Pre-Open   

   09:30 am   

   01:30 pm   

   Closing   

The Indian markets continued to trade on a strong note during the previous two hours of trade. Currently, buying activity is being witnessed across all sectors with stocks from realty, auto, healthcare, capital goods, oil & gas and metal sectors leading the pack of gainers.

The BSE-Sensex and the NSE-Nifty are currently trading higher by around 155 points and 46 points respectively. Stocks from the midcap and small cap spaces are trading in the green, with the BSE-Midcap and the BSE-Smallcap indices trading higher by 1.2% and 1.5% respectively. The rupee is trading at 45.48 to the US dollar.

Hero Honda is among the top gainers on BSE today. As per a leading business daily, in order to tap the expanding rural auto market in India, Hero Honda is planning to setup its fourth plant in the country. Though the exact plan for the new plant is yet to be disclosed, it is estimated that the plant will have a daily capacity of 2,000 units and will be funded by internal accruals.

It may be noted that the company aims to raise its share from the Indian rural market to 50% of its overall sales in next couple of years from the current levels of 40%. For this purpose it has added significantly to its network of dealer and service centers, set up health care initiatives and services to guide rural people in getting driving licenses. Apart from rural focus, the company is also eyeing opportunities of expansions in the export segment. The exports accounts for a mere 2.2% of its annual sales where the markets are Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Columbia. The company now aims to start exporting its motor-cycles to African markets as well. We believe that given the under penetration that exists in the domestic markets, the market leader in the motor cycle segment will stand to benefit more through its rural focus. Government’s emphasis on improving road infrastructure will further augment its growth.

According to a leading business daily, India’s largest telecom company Bharti Airtel is planning to roll out 200-250 new applications every month through its mobile application store, Airtel App Central. It is said to be working with a number of local and foreign mobile phone application developers in order to increase the number of applications hosted in its store.

It may be noted that Airtel App Central which was launched last month only already has around 1,400 applications across 25 different categories like business, games, books, entertainment and social networking. It is estimated that within one month of its launch, the company’s application store has become India’s largest mobile application store, overtaking global leaders like Nokia, BlackBerry and Apple. After the successful launch in India, the company plans to launch such application centers in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well. We believe that company’s strategy of strengthening its value-added services portfolio ahead of time will help it combat the pressures of price wars and declining average revenues per user (ARPUs) faced by the entire telecom industry.