Tata Electronics, which operates two manufacturing plants for Apple, is currently the leading job creator among the company’s Indian vendors.
At present Apple’s vendors and suppliers employ 150,000 people in India.
World’s second-largest smartphone maker – Apple – is expected to employ over 500,000 people in India, through its vendors, over the next three years.
“Apple is accelerating hiring in India. At a conservative estimate, it is going to employ five lakh people in the next three years through its vendors and components suppliers,” a senior government officer told PTI.
At present Apple’s vendors and suppliers employ 150,000 people in India. Tata Electronics, which runs two plants for Apple, is the biggest job generator.
Apple has plans to scale up production in India by over five-fold to around $40 billion (about 3.32 trillion) in the next 4-5 years.
Diversifying operations
According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, Apple led the India market with the highest revenue in 2023 for the first time, while Samsung topped the chart in terms of volume sales.
The firm in its recent report said Apple surpassed the 10-million-unit mark in shipments and captured the top position in revenue in a calendar year for the first time.
Tata Electronics, which operates two manufacturing plants for Apple, is currently the leading job creator among the company’s Indian vendors.
Tata already owns an iPhone factory acquired from Wistron Corp. in Karnataka, making it the first domestic iPhone manufacturer in India.
Apple’s strategy involves diversifying its operations beyond China, with collaborative efforts in assembly and component manufacturing spanning across countries like India, Thailand, Malaysia, and others
Tata Group is reportedly building one of India’s largest iPhone assembly plants in Hosur, Tamil Nadu, to support Apple’s goal of expanding its manufacturing presence in the country.
The plant will have about 20 assembly lines and create jobs for around 50,000 workers over the next two years. Tata has also been involved in iPhone assembly, manufacturing the metal body at its Tamil Nadu plant.
Meta Horizon OS devices will also use the same mobile companion app that Meta Quest owners use today and rename it as Meta Horizon app.
Meta Platforms is opening up the operating system powering its Meta Quest devices to third-party hardware makers and working with leading global technology companies to give more choice to consumers and a larger ecosystem for developers to build for.
The new hardware ecosystem will run on Meta Horizon OS, the mixed reality operating system that powers Meta Quest headsets.
Meta Horizon OS devices will also use the same mobile companion app that Meta Quest owners use today and rename it as the Meta Horizon app.
The social media company said that partners such as Asus and Lenovo would use the operating system to build devices tailored for particular activities.
Accelerating adoption
Meta is also using it to make a limited edition version of the Quest headset “inspired by” Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console, according to the company’s statement.
“Lenovo is bringing together Meta Horizon OS to accelerate adoption of new user scenarios in mixed reality like virtual screens, remote presence, content consumption and immersive training,” Yuanqing Yang, Chair & CEO, Lenovo, said.
To pioneer standalone headsets, Meta developed technologies like inside-out tracking, and for more natural interaction systems and social presence, they developed eye, face, hand and body tracking.
For mixed reality, they built a full stack of technologies for blending the digital and physical worlds, including high-resolution Passthrough, Scene Understanding, and Spatial Anchors.
The long-term investment that began on the mobile-first foundations of the Android Open Source Project has produced a full mixed reality operating system used by millions of people.
Gaming headset of the next generation
Meta’s VR business is one of the beneficiaries of that Google strategy, as Meta Horizon OS is itself Android-based.
Meta said in its blog post that ASUS’ Republic of Gamers is developing a gaming headset and Lenovo is working on an MR device for productivity, learning, and entertainment using the Horizon OS. Zuckerberg said it may take a few years for these devices to launch.
Xbox and Meta are working together to create a limited-edition Meta Quest, inspired by Xbox.
“We’ve been inspired by the incredible gaming community that has formed around virtual and mixed reality, and we know that the most passionate gamers want high-performance hardware. With Meta Horizon OS, ASUS and Republic of Gamers will build the gaming headset of the next generation,” S.Y. Hsu, Co-CEO, ASUS, said.
Cognizant is investing $1 billion in generative AI over the next three years to explore its potential for its clients, employees and end customers.
American IT firm Cognizant has partnered with Microsoft with the goal of making Microsoft’s generative AI and Copilots available to millions of users, to transform enterprise business operations, enhance employee experiences and accelerate cross-industry innovation.
Cognizant is already leveraging Microsoft Generative AI technology with its TriZetto platform, to help payers and providers reduce hidden costs and enable better patient outcomes for millions of Americans.
The partnership will use Microsoft Copilot and Cognizant’s advisory and digital transformation services to help employees and enterprise customers operationalise generative AI and realise strategic business transformation, a company statement said.
India to benefit
The company said it will contribute to the projected $1 trillion that AI is expected to inject into the US GDP over the next 10 years, adding that the partnership will also benefit India.
AI is expected to add $450–500 billion to India’s GDP by 2025, accounting for 10 per cent of the country’s $5 trillion GDP target.
A recent research report from Cognizant and Oxford Economics, found that generative AI could automate up to one-third of tasks for emergency physicians, which could help address staffing challenges, improve service quality and allow doctors to focus on patients’ health.
As part of the partnership, Cognizant purchased 25,000 Microsoft 365 Copilot seats for Cognizant associates, along with 500 Sales Copilot seats and 500 Services Copilot seats, and will work to deploy Microsoft 365 Copilot to a million users within their 2,000 global clients.
Delivering new value for customers
“Our expanded partnership with Cognizant will help organisations harness generative AI to transform business operations, enhance employee experiences, and deliver new value for customers,” Judson Althoff, Executive Vice-President and Chief Commercial Officer at Microsoft, said.
Ravi Kumar S, CEO, Cognizant, said that generative AI can be a game-changer for virtually every business in every industry, opening up new possibilities for innovation, efficiency and growth.
“That’s why we are investing $1 billion in generative AI over the next three years and leading the development of new research to explore its potential for our clients, their employees and end customers.”
Selected companies leveraging GenAI in their core solutions will receive equity investments between $200,000 and $500,000.
The programme has invited applications from India-based, early-stage (between Seed to Series A) technology startups from sectors including fintech (B2B & B2C), mobility and logistics, GenAI, healthtech, Saas, B2B marketplaces, deeptech, and climate & sustainability.
The investment arm of e-commerce major Flipkart – Flipkart Ventures – has invited applications for its third cohort of its accelerator programme – Flipkart Leap Ahead.
Startups leveraging GenAI in their core solutions across sectors will receive equity funding between $200,000 and $500,000 in addition to mentorship to achieve product-market fit, build scalable architecture, and assemble strong teams, the company said in a statement.
The early-stage tech startup-focused accelerator will invite applications from April 22 to May 26, 2024.
The two-month mentorship programme, wherein industry veterans, operators, and founders will guide these entrepreneurs to prepare them for hyper-growth, will conclude with a demo day where startups will share their progress and plans with potential investors to secure additional funding for their expansion.
Unearthing talent
“The accelerator programme provides selected startups with “substantial financial investment and, more importantly, opportunities for invaluable mentorship. To drive their growth, we look forward to ushering in the next generation of innovation,” Lubna Ahmed, Head of Flipkart Ventures, said.
In its previous two cohorts, over 15 startups across deep tech, fintech, health tech, generative AI, and sustainability have raised funding. The inaugural and preceding cohorts included startups that received further investments such as RightBot, Tune.ai, LivWell, FlexifyMe, Dopplr, etc.
The programme has invited applications from India-based, early-stage (between Seed to Series A) technology startups from sectors including fintech (B2B & B2C), mobility and logistics, GenAI, healthtech, Saas, B2B marketplaces, deeptech, and climate & sustainability.
Mobile game publisher, which already operates eight development studios, may involve adding a “genre-leading title” to Scopely’s roster.
Savvy, wholly owned by Saudia Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, I set to invest more in mobile game development and acquisitions after its mobile game “Monopoly Go” met with major success.
Last April, Savvy agreed to buy mobile game maker Scopely for $4.9 billion, the same month the Monopoly title was released. Since then, the online iteration of the famous board game has grossed $2 billion in revenue.
“Now, Scopely will form the “tip of the spear” for Savvy’s investment strategy,” CEO Brian Ward told Bloomberg.
That means more money for the mobile game publisher, which already operates eight development studios, and may involve adding a “genre-leading title” to Scopely’s roster.
Top priority
Savvy announced in 2022 that it had $38 billion in funding to help turn the oil-dependent nation into a hub for the video-game industry. The company has since invested $8.3 billion.
“We’re not in a rush to deploy all the capital within a certain time frame,” Ward said, adding that his top priority now is “enabling Scopely to do what they do best.”
Scopely spent nearly $500 million on marketing alone for Monopoly Go — more than Sony Group Corp. spent developing Spider-Man 2, a hit console game.
“We have a short recoup horizon for those spend,” Scopely CEO Javier Ferreira said in an interview at the Game Developers Conference last month.
“We used it to achieve an audience of 10 million daily active users. And we got the product to a revenue scale that I don’t think any product in mobile games in the West has achieved.”
Ferreira added that, since the acquisition, Savvy has been hands-off with its day-to-day operations.
Mobile-first approach
Savvy also has two of its own games in development and is taking a mobile-first approach.
Not all of Savvy’s investments have been as immediately lucrative. An early focus on esports has raised questions as the industry struggles to attract audiences and sponsors.
The company put over $1.5 billion into acquisitions to form ESL Faceit Group, which will operate Saudi Arabia’s Esports World Cup this summer with a record-breaking $60 million prize pool. ESL Faceit laid off 15 per cent of its staff in February, which Ward said was due to redundancies. He said Savvy is done making large investments in esports.
Swedish game maker Embracer Group AB, in which Savvy also invested, is in restructuring mode after disappointing results. Last year, Savvy pulled out of a $2 billion deal with Embracer.
Ward says he is still bullish on Embracer, describing them as “unfairly maligned,” and would not share specifics on the failed partnership.
Prioritising mental health in the workplace can help workers flourish and reach their full potential.
The Dublin-based company, which is setting up an office in Dubai soon to cater to the Middle East and North region, is expected to offer its services this year.
Need for an established workplace wellness programme is essential for retaining top talent, ensuring KPIs are being met and guaranteeing a high return on investment.
Technology has brought various benefits to the world and at the same time, the same technology is impacting users’ mental health.
There are reports that mental health issues have impacted workplace behaviour and employers are not doing enough for their staff.
Mental health touches every aspect of our lives, especially workplace performance. Key performance indicators such as productivity, creativity, and social engagement can all take a hit if an employee’s mental health is suffering.
Prioritising mental health in the workplace can help workers flourish and reach their full potential, which is what businesses need to thrive and grow.
According to the Business Group on Health survey, over seven out of ten employers (77 per cent) noted an increase in mental health issues in their workforce in 2023, a big leap from 44 per cent of employers in 2022. Another 16 per cent of respondents expected to see more increases this year.
“Looking to the future, increasing access to mental healthcare services was the most common initiative that employers expected to implement in 2024. Around 53 per cent of respondents expected to adopt mental healthcare centres of excellence (COEs) in 2025 and 2026 as well as 52 per cent who anticipated adopting substance use disorder COEs.”
One company which is making a change since 2018 is the Dublin-headquartered digital mental health and wellbeing company – Spectrum.Life.
People need to get “timely support”
“What we are seeing is a much higher and increasing demand for mental health services as the traditional mental health services are not able or keep up. There is a growing demand and supply gap and the consistent problem we are hearing from insurers, GPs and health systems,” Stuart McGoldrick, founder of Spectrum.Life, said in an exclusive interview with TechChannel News.
Moreover, he said that people need to get “timely support” to solve mental health issues and they are not getting it due to long waiting lists and growing demand.
“We originally worked with multinational clients that have their European headquarters in Ireland. We worked with them to provide digital offerings for their employees. Our first clients were Microsoft, Meta, Intel, Dell, Bank of America, CitiBank and other big US corporations. Even now, none of the big clients have left us because they trust us and they know what we are doing,” McGoldrick said.
Moreover, he said the company aims to offer a holistic end-to-end approach to support people in advance of, through and beyond crisis” to change the current “cookie-cutter” approach to mental health.
One app and many benefits
The company provides mental health and wellbeing services for insurers, employers, employees and students in the UK, Ireland and across the EU countries.
“Our USP for a corporation is that we integrate all that they do from the health and wellbeing perspectives. We do the booking journeys for onsite gym classes and PTs to digital healthcare services, connected to their healthcare insurance policies,” McGoldrick said.
A corporate employee has to open only one app and one portal to engage in everything that the corporation is delivering to you in terms of health and wellbeing, he said and added that there is “no one in the market doing that like the way we do.”
Normally, digital health providers provide their technology and their healthcare services in separate apps, he said but “we developed the technology to ensure to connect all of their insurance claim journeys and healthcare journeys to provide a multi-provider model to provide the best psycho-provider and best GP provider from a single app.”
Spectrum.Life has more than 6.3 million insurance members on its app and across different pillars.
Preventing mental health escalations
“We have digital tools to prevent mental health escalations and to improve the positive emotional well-being of our users. We have 3,000 corporate clients and 600,000 third-level university students who use our mental health services,” McGoldrick said.
“We have a technology to connect a user to a coach or a clinic if they need and the technology connects the user to the right clinic based on their presenting issue, demographic and the severity of their mental health need. Moreover, we have a 24/7 team to support members whenever they need other specialised services. That is why; we are cut above the rest and growing 60 per cent year on year.”
Sometimes, he said that they have their members in the corporate HR teams to assist in the workplace and a large amount of multinationals have the Chief Medical Officer or Chief Mental Health Officer in their team or they outsource it to us and “we both of those for them. Smaller companies do not have this privilege and they rely very heavily on us.”
McGoldrick said that their studies have shown that productivity can go up by 43 per cent by using their app and 70 per cent of employees that engage with wellness services report higher job satisfaction.
APAC on radar
“We do about 250,000 mental health consultations a year and did 1.5 million consultations this year on our digital health services through our technology and have over 750,000 people who engage in health and wellbeing on our platform this year,” he said.
The company has recently entered Dubai, UAE, to cater to the Middle East and North region, and hiring clinicians (front end) and management staff to support the clients in that region.
“We will be launching our services this year. We are moving to the MENA region, due to the growing demand and supply gap, so that we can cover five times the population per clinician than the traditional providers can,” he said.
He said his goal is to enter two new markets this year and has already signed one client each from each country and APAC is also on our radar.
However, he said that the need for an established workplace wellness programme is essential for retaining top talent, ensuring KPIs are being met and guaranteeing a high return on investment.
“We are committed to creating a culture of innovation to encourage and empower your staff to take control of their health and wellbeing. We know from experience that delivering modern, safe and clinically validated healthcare service can transform lives,” he added.
