Business News

Facebook's stock fall 'painful' to watch: Zuckerberg

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly admitted that the firm's stock market tumble has been "painful" to watch, while addressing a meeting to boost the morale of his staff.

He gathered the social networking site's staff to discuss the issue ahead of the release of an extra 271 million shares this week, which cut Facebook shares to just 19.87 dollars, almost half their 38 dollar floatation price.

Cisco's Q4 earnings up 56%

Cisco Systems, the world's largest maker of computer networking equipment, is seeing its ambitions cramped by the global economic turmoil, but results for its latest quarter were strong enough that it announced an increase to its dividend.
Cisco's sales in the latest quarter rose just 4.4 per cent from last year, as customers in Southern Europe were in the grips of a recession and government customers on both sides of the Atlantic held back. Cisco's long-term goal is for annual growth of 5 per cent to 7 per cent.

Cheap clones hurting iPhone Business in China

In China's booming smartphone market, which is set this year to overtake the United States as the world's largest, a host of little-known local firms are primed with cheap phones to squeeze market share from US giant Apple's iPhone.

In the latest local challenge to the iPhone, Xiaomi Technology on Thursday launches the successor to its popular MiOne smartphone, which is expected to have top-end specifications exceeding those of the iPhone 4S - at around half the price.

HCL Technologies's Q4 profit rises 29% at Rs 659 crore

BANGALORE: HCL Technologies Ltd, country's fourth-largest software services exporter, reported a 29 per cent rise in quarterly net profit, just shy of expectations, after winning more outsourcing orders amid the global economic uncertainty.

HCL Technologies said on Wednesday consolidated net profit for the fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30 rose to Rs 659 crore ($117.5 million) from Rs 510 crore a year earlier.

LIC ups stake in Infosys to 6.3%, buys shares worth Rs 2k cr 

The country's largest insurer LIChas hiked its stake in Infosys to a record high level of 6.3% with purchase of shares worth an estimated Rs 2,000 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal.

Life Insurance Corp of India (LIC), also one of the biggest investors in the Indian stock market, saw its holding in the IT major rise from 4.9% to 6.3% during the quarter ended June 30, 2012.

Based on the average market price during the period, the increase in LIC's Infosys holding could be worth more than Rs 2,000 crore. LIC is the largest non-promoter shareholder of the company.

Flipkart needs $150 million from investors

Flipkart needs about $150 million from new investors in the next six to nine months even as bulge-bracket private equity firms remain wary of the online retailer's initial public offering plans in the US—crucial to making handsome return on investments.