Good morning! After its first quarter sales setback in key markets, labour trouble is brewing for Apple. Employees at a Maryland retail store of the tech giant have voted to call a strike any time even as contract negotiations continue. It was the first Apple store to unionise along with one in Oklahoma in 2022. Meanwhile, staff at an Apple store in New Jersey voted over the weekend against unionising, Bloomberg reports. It has been blamed on the company’s anti-unionising tactics, which drew rebuke from the US Labour Board last week.

🎧 In today’s episode, we look at X's recent decision to ban over 100,000 Indian accounts and Elon Musk’s broader campaign against what he views as government 'censorship' on a global scale. Aside: humans are hiring bots to hire humans. Tune in on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Market Signal* 

Stocks & Economy: Asian stocks opened lower on Monday due to China’s stronger than expected consumer inflation data for April. Beijing also reported credit shrinkage for the first time and continued decline in industrial prices.

Washington may increase tariffs on some Chinese goods. Bloomberg reports that the Biden administration will levy a 102.5% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles, up from the existing 27.5%.

The GIFT Nifty suggests a negative opening for Indian indices. New Delhi will release inflation figures later today. Zomato, Varun Beverages, DLF, and Jindal Steel & Power are among 51 companies who will report their Q4 earnings today.

AUTO 

JSW’s EV Win, T&C Apply

Steel-to-power giant JSW Group’s joint venture with China’s SAIC – JSW MG Motor India Pvt Ltd (J-MG) – to make new-energy vehicles (NEVs) is billionaire Sajjan Jindal’s way of scratching an itch to enter carmaking. 

In March, JSW chief Jindal said that he dreams of creating a NEV ‘Maruti movement’. J-MG aims to launch a new car every three to six months starting September 2024 and sell 1 million NEVs by 2030. 

Hitting 1 million sales in seven years is ambitious by any measure, but not impossible. Those involved aren’t just ballsy upstarts, after all. Both JSW and SAIC have the capital and ability to quickly scale up. But the venture’s success hinges on some key factors, including geopolitical shifts, navigating a transnational partnership, and most importantly, earning the trust of the value-conscious Indian consumer. Head to The Core to know what lies ahead for the JV. 

PODCAST

Tune in every Monday to Friday as financial journalist and host Govindraj Ethiraj gives you the most important take on the latest in business and economy.

In today’s episode, he speaks to Dr Reji K Joseph, Associate Professor, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, about India’s dependence on China for pharmaceutical raw materials. Also in this episode: will cities like Mumbai and Delhi see power cuts this summer? With Karthik Ganesan, Director, Research Co-ordination, Centre for Energy, Environment & Water (CEEW).

ENERGY

Coal Keeps It Cool

India's hunger for coal is unabated. Imports in FY24 rose 7.7% to 268 million tonnes in anticipation of demand from power stations. 

Coal-based power stations will have to crank up generation as hydroelectricity production is expected to fall precipitously. Intense heat is pushing up demand for cooling. India has 93 million air-conditioners in operation and from 2019 to 2023, average hourly demand for power on really hot days went up 28%. 

Dry tanks: Water storage at 150 reservoirs, including 20 with hydroelectric projects, is 21% lower than the level at this time last year. It is 9% lower than the average in the last 10 years, latest Central Water Commission data shows (pdf). 

Meanwhile, the government is planning to train 100,000 workers in setting up and maintaining rooftop solar panels. It’s targeting to convert 10 million rooftops into generators of 300 units of solar power each. 

SOCIAL MEDIA

Who’s Winning The Election? YouTube

The ongoing national elections have turned out to be a YouTube (YT) election, The Economic Times reports. 

What: Unlike the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, when Facebook and WhatsApp were the dominant platforms respectively for electoral campaigning, YouTube has emerged as the principal digital arena for political debate and discourse. 

By the numbers: YT now has over 500 million subscribers in India, almost as much as WhatsApp users.

The Aam Aadmi Party leads the league table among political parties with 6.26 million YT subscribers, closely followed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with 5.9 million followers and the Congress Party in third position with 4.77 million subscribers. The BJP and the Congress also spent the most on video advertisements on Google, the former spending Rs 50.4 crore (~$6 million), while the latter spent half of that. 

The Signal

With faster Internet speeds and cheaper data, it is no surprise that video has become the medium of choice for politicking. But YT’s success is partly owed to the Indian government, which banned TikTok, the world’s most popular video app. Users in the US spend an average 90 minutes daily on TikTok, much more than YT, Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat. Being a video platform is not enough. What makes TikTok and YT perfectly tailored for politics is their recommendation engines, which help constant, continuous engagement. While Indian politics is lit on YT, US presidential campaigns are swarming TikTok.

FYI

Rocket fuel: The Adani Group plans to invest Rs 80,000 crore (~$10 billion) in FY25, bulk of which will be spent on new energy and airport businesses, a company official has revealed. 

Packing up: Czech financier Home Credit is set to sell its Indian business, built largely financing Indians’ smartphone buying frenzy, to a clutch of investors, including TVS Holdings and Premji Invest.

Big partners: China was India’s largest trading partner in FY24 clocking exports and imports of $118.4 billion, edging out the US trade with which stood at $118.3 billion. 

Jobs ahoy! A new report says 46% of tech hiring managers in a survey said they are expanding teams. Only 23% have frozen recruitment. 

Squeezed: Shapoorji Pallonji Group has sought more time from lenders to repay Rs 1,400 crore debt instalment. 

THE DAILY DIGIT

Rs 5.01 lakh crore

Or ~$60 billion. The cost overrun of 449 infrastructure projects, each with a budget of Rs 150 crore and above, in March 2024. Of a total 1,873 projects tracked by the government, 779 were delayed. (Business Standard)

FWIW

The celestial light show usually visible only in the earth’s polar region has gone on a global tour. Bright, colourful hues light up Scandinavian skies when coronal ejections from the sun interact with the earth's magnetosphere. They are called Aurora Borealis. Similar lights near the South Pole are called the Aurora Australis. But in the wee hours last Saturday, the night sky in Ladakh turned red, a rare occurrence. Solar physicists say that four solar storms hit the earth between Friday and Saturday. Solar winds of such intensity were last witnessed in 2003. Particles in the unusually strong winds likely flowed down the earth’s magnetic field and collided with atoms in the upper atmosphere even in lower latitudes, lighting up the Himalayan skies.