How will the new rules hurt Walmart and Amazon? The Indian government recently updated its policies for foreign direct investments (FDI) in e-commerce platforms, and the changes could throttle Walmart (NYSE: WMT) and Amazon.com's (NASDAQ: AMZN) growth in the country. The new rules, which go into effect on Feb. 1, will ban online retailers from offering exclusive sales, prevent them from selling products in which they own equity interest, and introduce new restrictions on discounts and cashback offers. The rules are aimed at helping smaller retailers compete more effectively against Walmart's Flipkart and Amazon. The new FDI rules could hurt Flipkart and Amazon in several ways. First, both companies frequently partner with big brands to launch platform-exclusive sales, especially for smartphones. Amazon previously launched an exclusive sale withXiaomi (NASDAQOTH: XIACF), and Flipkart did the same with Oppo. The new rules wil...
As soon as WhatsApp announces a new update, users get excited and can’t wait to try it out. Things might be different this time. In an attempt by Facebook to monetize WhatsApp, the service will introduce targeted advertisements, which will be displayed in the Status tab. Clearly, WhatsApp users are quite pissed and reports have suggested that few users are already switching to ad-free based messaging platforms, such as Telegram and Viber. WhatsApp serial tipster WABetaInfo on Twitter ran a poll, asking followers if they would continue to use the service, after the new Status ads feature goes live. However, 60 percent of users did vote to stick to the platform as they believed these ads were not invasive WhatsApp’s Status tab is similar to Snapchat’s Stories, wherein users post videos and GIFs which disappear in 24 hours. WhatsApp-owned Facebook says that over 450 million of WhatsApp’s user base is currently using the Status tab feature. Early this year, one of the co-foun...