European Economy will get rid of Recession

    For the past eighteen months, entire world is evident for worsening European economic situations, which is mainly due to sovereign debt crises. Even it has badly affected the world's developing economies specially South Africa. But it has been indicated by International Monetary Fund (IMF) that Europe as a whole may avoid a recession this year and there were reasons to be more upbeat about prospects for the region.

The main reason is that many of the European countries are growing at a faster rate which will reduce the overall impact of the European debt crises. Most of the EU countries have reduced or stabilized their increasing interest rates despite of dominating recession. It has been suggested to South Africa that economic powerhouse should be maintained supportive to monetary policy to ensure growth in the medium term.

(Courtesy- Reuters, 11th Jan. 2012)

Alta Moda, setting up premium priorities

    The only premium fashion magazine from Pune, Alta Moda, with its recent fall wedding issue has given a kick-start to the premium priorities of people. While featuring the premium pre-wedding sneaks, Alta Moda has uncovered the unbound expectation of today's sophisticated mindset.
    How a going-to-be bride wants to make her wedding the memorable one? How she prepares for it? How should a going-to-be married couple spend their highly sensual time? and lots of things to be taken care of before getting married..!! The German Supermodel Elena Kazan has revealed the gorgeous views of today's bride's fashion in Ilisia's outstanding collection with the help of Vivek Tickoo and Vishal Nale's lenses.
Overall, its a real premium magazine that is surely gonna set new trend in India for premium fashion.

Sales of Digital Music overtook Physical formats

From the references of Times Magazine and CNN Money, its been revealed that people are now highly interested in shopping music online. With the iTune music store trend, music lovers have become more sophisticated and opting for online music purchases.

According to a Nielsen and Billboard report, digital music purchases accounted for 50.3% of music sales in 2011. Digital sales were up 8.4% from the previous year, while physical album sales declined 5%.

Lady Gaga was found to be the most streamed artist whereas Adele's album 21 was the top selling album both online and physically, and her popular song, "Rolling in the Deep," was the bestselling digital song, with 5.8 million downloads.

Digital music selling have become the eco-friendly format over traditional plastic format which is not the optimal one. Mobile and Smartphone revolution have proved to be the catalysts for the Digi-music trend.

Traditional music magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin Magazine have now created apps that allow users to purchase music while browsing, and services like Spotify have partnered with Facebook to boost music discovery and sharing.
(Courtesy- The Times Magazine, CNN Money)

Nokia- Lost somewhere

      Till last, a year or two, it was the Nokia, that was ruling the Indian Mobile phone market. The extreme trust by customers and hence the strong hold in terms of market share had made Nokia as the most valued and trusted brand in the Mobile Handset market in India. But now, the picture has been completely changed. The brands like Samsung and LG which were considered to be the optional and easy on pocket hence, have thrown Nokia far away from the competition.
      The day since when Samsung and LG came up with easy on pocket Touch-phone models, Indian customers also have started passionately using these phones. In order to get in line with the Blackberry and other smartphone users, Indian customers have liked these brands beyond the limits and then the competition began between Samsung-LG and the outsiders leaving Nokia far behind.
Of course, Nokia was also having attractive touch-phones and still, but the trend that has been set by Corby Series by Samsung and the rising popularity of its Google Android phones led by the Galaxy range has vanished the ongoing Nokia dominance.
       Now both Samsung and Nokia are seen blaming each others on ambush marketing, but in reality it is the revolution in the Indian Mobile handset markets. The marketing war in India has intensified after Nokia rolled out its first Windows-based smartphone, Lumia, last month. Samsung has started pushing its own Windows smartphone Omnia, launched more than a year ago, but the fact is that Lumia has failed.
Some marketing experts believe Samsung is playing it smart. Competition is all about being opportunistic and scoring a goal when the rival is least prepared. And that's where Samsung has proved to be a better player.

Reasons for BRIC’s slowdown

BRIC stands for the group of countries- BRAZIL, RUSSIA, INDIA, CHINA.

After four times faster growth of BRIC in the past decade compared to the America’s, now they are slowing down with no hopes of surging up in the next few years. This year BRIC recorded $15 billions of outflow and BRIC indexes may fall another 20% next year, buffeted by the liquidity squeeze stemming from Europe's sovereign debt crisis. Few main reasons for this slowdown are-

• Higher Wages
• Higher Interest Rates
• Currency Volatility

This is again confined to the lowered GDPs in these countries due to less supply of workers to the production. Average economic growth in the BRIC countries will decelerate to 6.1% next year from a high of 9.7% in 2007, according to September estimates by the International Monetary Fund.

(Courtesy- The Economic Times, 29th Dec.2011)

Story of Rupee...!!!

The year 2011 started with a stable rupee. The outlook seemed positive with steady capital flows. At times when inflows were dull, it was mainly due to apprehensions in the market about capital controls.

Things were going fine for the rupee for most part of the year, though globally there was uncertainty about the economic fundamentals of advanced economies.

However, things took a turn for the worse in the currency markets after global ratings firm Standard and Poor's downgraded the US Sovereignty outlook. The rupee started weakening against the dollar steadily as dollar flows slowed down. Foreign portfolio inflows between April and October this year amounted to a mere $ 922 million compared to $ 27 million in the same period a year ago.

The rupee has slipped almost 18% since the US sovereign downgrade. RBI largely remained on the sidelines for a long time, with the top brass defending its inaction, attributing the rupee's slide to global developments. It sold just about $1.8 billion during September and October.
The central bank acted only towards late November, announcing measures to encourage dollar inflows, like relaxing caps on interest rates on NRI deposits and asking ECB proceeds for local expenditure to be brought home immediately. In early December it totally curbed rebooking of cancelled forward contracts. The last time such harsh steps were taken was in late 1997, when the rupee fell sharply against the dollar in response to the movement of other Asian currencies.
The rupee had performed better than most other Asian currencies then.
However, this time round the rupee is the worse performer. Its external sector fundamentals are weaker.
India is perhaps the only economy among its Asian peers to have a current account deficit, and it could widen further due to high crude and commodity prices.

(Courtesy- The Economic Times, 28th Dec. 2011)

Foreign Fashion Retailers wooeing in India...

With a slowdown in the US and European economies, foreign brands are now setting their eyes on the lucrative Indian market with an investment of over $90 million. Paris-based luxury goods group Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH), Danish fashion house Bestseller with 4 brands, DLF Retail and Reliance Brands (a unit of Reliance Retail), Swedish fashion retailer Hennes & Mauritz, American high street casual wear brand Brooks Brothers, Italian luxury apparel player Emilo Pucci and many others are looking for strategic alliances with each other and new starts in India. These retailers are targeting the major cities in India like Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Lucknow and Ludhiana.

While India was a promising market to many international brands, it was not completely immune to the global economic flu. More than its primary impact on the economy, it sobered the mood in the consumer market. Even the core target group for international brands, that had just begun to splurge, apparently without guilt, tightened the purse strings and either down-traded or postponed their purchases. Hence its essential for these Retailers to position themselves in a rational way to alert Indian consumers.

(Courtesy- The Financial Express & Images Fashion.com)