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After a successful Diwali season, traders across the country are now preparing for major business opportunities in the upcoming wedding season, set to begin with Dev UthEkadashi on November 12 and continue until December 16.According to a study conducted by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), the retail sector, encompassing both goods and services, is expected to benefit from approximately 48 lakh weddings, generating business worth nearly Rs 6 lakh crore. Last year, an estimated 35 lakh weddings during this season created business worth Rs 4.25 lakh crore. This year, the increase in auspicious wedding dates is anticipated to bring significant growth. In 2023, there were 11 auspicious dates, whereas this year there are 18, further fueling the trade, CAIT asserted. Delhi alone is expected to witness 4.5 lakh weddings.According to Acharya Durgesh Tare, Convenor of CAIT's Veda and Spiritual Committee, auspicious dates for this season fall on November 12, 13, 17, 18, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, and 29, and on December 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, and 16. Following this period, there will be a pause of about a month before the wedding season resumes from mid-January to March 2025. CAIT has derived these business estimates based on discussions with major business organisations across 75 cities, specifically those dealing in wedding-related goods and services.CAIT's Secretary General and Member of Parliament from Chandni Chowk, Praveen Khandelwal, stated that the study has also highlighted a shift in consumer purchasing behaviour, with people increasingly opting for Indian products over foreign goods, reflecting the success of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Vocal for Local' and 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' vision.Khandelwal noted that these estimates are based on auspicious dates, though numerous weddings will also occur on non-auspicious dates. Additionally, various pre-wedding functions, like mehendi, sangeet, and engagements, also represent significant expenses.Khandelwal further explained that wedding expenses are divided between goods and services, with main expenditure areas in goods including clothing, sarees, lehengas, and apparel, jewellery, electronics and appliances, dry fruits, sweets, and snacks, groceries and vegetables, gift items, among others.In the services sector, expenditures will likely go toward banquet halls, hotels, and venues, event management, tent decoration, catering services, floral decorations, transportation and cab services, photography and videography, orchestra and music, lighting and sound, and other services. A new trend emerging is the increasing spending on social media services for weddings.

A data centre boom globally, in addition to rapid 5G rollouts, is silently propelling the growth of another ancillary industry: Optic fibre cables (OFCs). With top dollar expected to flow into the segment in the next decade, service providers and fibre manufacturers are looking to simultaneously strengthen deployment locally and double down on building capacities and boosting exports. Investment banking firm Avendus Capital expects around $2 billion capital expenditure towards data centre fibre alone over the next decade, with global private equity funds eyeing the India opportunity. Deloitte estimates that overall fibre deployment in India will be 4 million kilometres in 2024, expected to expand at 12- 15% over the next two years. Manufacturers are also looking to harness India’s already established credentials. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, India’s OFC exports to more than 100 countries in FY24 totalled Rs 39,600 crore. Nearly half of the shipments were to major European nations, including Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Italy, and the Czech Republic. To be sure, fibre is no longer the exclusive preserve of telecom companies, as newer ventures like Lightstorm and Space World Group are laying their own infra. 114892058Backed by US PE firm I Squared Capital, Lightstorm has invested over $100 million in the past four years in laying down 30,000 km of fibre network, connecting 60 data centres. It is now looking for M&A opportunities, Amajit Gupta, group CEO and MD, told ET. “We are a challenger (to telcos) and not an incumbent,” he said, explaining that Lightstorm offers direct connectivity between cloud and enterprises. He added that sizing the market opportunity post AI is extremely difficult. EXPONENTIAL RISE IN DEMAND“When we started modelling this business, pre-AI, four years ago, we predicted data utilisation of 300 Mbps per rack. And now, with AI, the traffic is going through the roof, nearly 10-15 times more,” Gupta said. Consumption per rack has nearly quadrupled to 11 kilowatt in four years, he added. Space World Group, a fibre assets company, plans to connect 35 data centres in seven major Indian cities, entailing an investment of $500 million through its new ventures called Constl and Ranext, co-founder Ankit Goel said. Back in 2021, US PE firm Brookfield bought Space Teleinfra, the fibre arm of the Space World Group, for Rs 900 crore. “Fibre is a crucial piece in this fast-growing industry given the requirement for P2P connection of data centres within a city and across cities along with the connectivity with (undersea) cable landing stations,” said Prateek Jhawar, managing director and head - Infrastructure & Real Assets, Avendus Capital. He pointed out that telcos are the biggest use case for fibre in India owing to 4G/5G tower and cell site fiberisation. High levels of tower fiberisation- —where India is a relative straggler—are critical to support 5G data speeds and apps such as video-on-demand. “Only 40% of India’s telecom towers are fiberised, which is way below the 85-90% fiberisation levels in China, the US, the European Union or South Korea. BharatNet’s fibre resources can be handy to bridge this fiberisation gap, as private telcos can definitely use its long-haul fibre,” said a top tower industry executive.SCOPE FOR EXPANSION Even after two years of 5G, India continues to remain highly under-fibreised, with cumulative fibre-deployed to-population ratio at 0.1x, compared to 1.2X in the US and 0.7x in China, Deloitte said in a study. But with the availability of a large pool of capital in this sector, telecom companies are moving from a capex model to an opex model reducing upfront cost. “In the last few years, close to $1 billion of capital expenditure has been incurred in India annually towards fibre infrastructure,” Jhawar said.