Business News

New Delhi: Homegrown Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), driven by strong demand for its range of SUVs, raced past Korean rival Hyundai Motor in February to grab the second spot in India's passenger vehicle market behind leader Maurti Suzuki. The Mumbai-based manufacturer of the XUV700 and Thar Roxx SUVs sold 50,420 passenger vehicles, up 19% from a year earlier, in a month when industry sales were estimated to be subdued, growing just around 2% amid tepid consumer demand. 118653521The local unit of Hyundai posted a 5% fall in sales volume at 47,727 units. Industry insiders said this was the first time when Mahindra has come in second in terms of monthly sales in the Indian passenger vehicle market. Sales at Maruti Suzuki remained almost flat from a year earlier at 160,791 units.Tax Reforms BoostTata Motors posted a 9% fall at 46,435 units. These numbers represent the vehicles that automakers dispatched to their dealerships, and not retail sales that they usually don’t report.Hyundai though remained the No.2 automaker based on sales volume in the first 11 months of this fiscal year, dispatching 546,846 units, compared with 503,439 by Mahindra. Mahindra’s president for the automotive division, Veejay Nakra, cited “continued positive momentum” for the company’s SUVs for the strong performance in February. Hyundai Motor India chief operating officer Tarun Garg said the company is optimistic about the tax reforms proposed in the union budget and improved liquidity boosting demand in the market.Maruti Suzuki crossed the 2-million mark in total sales (domestic and exports) in the first 11 months of the ongoing fiscal year, senior executive officer (marketing and sales) Partho Banerjee said. In the domestic market, Banerjee said, the company is seeing strong demand for SUVs. SUVs and MPVs continued to drive volumes at Toyota Kirloskar Motor, as the Indian unit of Japan’s Toyota Motor bucked the industry trend with sales rising 13% to 26,414 units. In the commercial vehicle market, leader Tata Motors posted an 8% fall in sales at 30,797 units in February. In two-wheelers, TVS Motor Company posted a 3% increase in sales at 276,072 units in the past month, while Royal Enfield recorded 19% growth at 80,799 units.

New Delhi: Indian entities are expected to lose Rs 20,000 crore due to cyber crimes this year, cyber security intelligence firm CloudSEK said in a report. The company claims to have done a detailed analysis of 200 companies across sectors, over 5,000 domain takedowns, data of about 16,000 brand abuse, official data from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) documenting nationwide cybercrime patterns and financial impacts etc for artificial intelligence based projection. "The biggest revelation from our research is the sheer scale of financial losses of over Rs 20,000 crore due to cybercrime, of which Rs 9,000 crore is due to brand name abuse alone. The fact that brand abuse is implicated in nearly one-third of all cybercrime incidents and a staggering 70 per cent of high-value scams is a wake-up call for India," Pavan Karthick M, Threat Intelligence Researcher at CloudSEK said. Cybercrime complaints are expected to exceed 25 lakh, with 5 lakh explicitly mentioning brand impersonation. "The white paper builds upon previous research documenting losses of Rs 11,333 crore in the first nine months of 2024 by I4C. By applying advanced predictive modeling techniques to comprehensive datasets, we project the trajectory of these losses into 2025, providing stakeholders with actionable intelligence to combat this growing threat," the report said. According to the analysis done by CloudSEK Nexus platform , banking and financial services will bear the maximum brunt of the losses of around Rs 8,200 crore, followed by retail and e-commerce of Rs 5,800 crore and government services Rs 3,400 crore. "Investment scams (pig-butchering) and advance-fee scams are the primary drivers of financial losses," the report said. Fraudulent domains (website names) are projected to increase by 65 per cent, while fraudulent apps are expected to surge by 83 per cent, particularly in financial services, the report said.