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Learning by Proxy

Learning by Proxy | Energy

This is one planet and so many things on this planet are shared by all of us. Our environment, the internet and so much more. Should nations take charge of these things individually or should some of them get regulated through a single authority?

Splinternet

After the Second World War, the American government was worried that an attack on the communications infrastructure might render their soldiers on the battlefield unable to communicate. DARPA wanted a decentralised communication network and the mandate was given to a bunch of researchers. They created the internet by connecting three universities by cable. 

Since its origins, the internet has been free and open. Everything was accessible to everyone so long as there was a cable that went there. Then China joined the internet bandwagon. They created a Chinese version of the internet which is highly censored. And companies that were willing to bow to the government for having unhindered access to the Chinese market – almost all Chinese – made it big there.

Now as these companies develop global ambitions and begin to venture beyond China in the current environment (refer to the China edition of Learning by Proxy) the entire world wants to push back. Also, it is perhaps the safest thing to push back on. China cannot retaliate in any way since they never let the other platforms in.

It began when Indian banned 59 Chinese apps to retaliate against border disputes. Now the US is joining the bandwagon.

The US state department announced today that it will expand its “Clean Network” initiative, first rolled out in April, to root out major Chinese tech products from the US system. The department said the move is aimed at guarding US citizens’ privacy and US companies’ sensitive information from “aggressive intrusions by malign actors.”

Source: Quartz

In the name of data security, almost all countries are moving in the direction of restricting or ruling what would be allowed and not allowed. The greater problem is that even when not acting out of nationalistic fervour, the priorities of different nations can be quite different when it comes to privacy and so on. Ben Evans had argued about the same issue in his blog.

These regulatory spheres are probably going to start bumping into each other. GDPR made it clear that rules would increasingly apply no matter where your servers are: if your users are in the EU, you have to obey EU rules, and for practical reasons that probably means you have to obey them for all of your users. CCPA effectively does the same in the USA, where California has increasingly become the national privacy regulator by default. An intriguing further step came from this case, in which an EU court held that Facebook must take down libellous content not just in Austria, where the case began, but globally. Meanwhile, the new Hong Kong security law appears to apply to behaviour by non-HK residents outside HK, which is truly extra-territorial. The obvious next question is what happens when an extraterritorial rule collides with a trade-off. What happens when the UK says you must do something and Germany says you must not?  

Source: Ben Evans

All this is creating a situation where the internet can no longer be the same for everyone in every country. Are there businesses where we need to arrive at a global standard and agree on the same thing? Four years back as the sharing economy was on the rise I had written a blog which is more relevant now than ever before.

The trouble with the law is that it is defined with a set of assumptions in mind. Every once in a while there is a change, a disruption, a paradigm shift, that uproots those set of assumptions completely.

[…]

The time has come when governments across the world begin to think about lawmaking as a service. Imbuing the process with greater speed and efficiency, taking the process online and making the process more participative. The steps should be taken now rather than waiting for a day when the government is disrupted.

Source

I was told at the time by a lawyer that the stability of policy is critical for businesses to thrive and the goalpost cannot keep shifting. Well by the looks of it, whether it is TikTok or numerous other services, the goalposts continue to shift either way. There are certain things that we share as a platform across the globe and we need to address them as a civilisation rather than individual nations. We have done that for space exploration, why not for things within the planet as well?

Energy Momentum

In 1880, it was prize money of 50,000 Francs from the French Government that formed the foundation of the Volta Laboratory. The Volta Bureau setup in 1893 still stands in Washington D.C. It was later renamed after the founder, Alexander Graham Bell, as the Bell Labs. In 1947, two scientists at the Bell Labs created the transistor. Their supervisor, William Shockley not only took credit for it but also was as awarded the Nobel Prize as one of the inventors. He left Bell and took some land and money from Stanford to set up Shockley Semiconductors. Some deceit and a couple of plot twists later in the summer of 1968, the world got Integrated Electronics. We call this company Intel.

In the last issue, I had mentioned Intel is fighting hard to die. The initial rise of Intel was supported by government contracts before they became the preferred supplier to computer manufacturers. It took 30 years for the invention to turn into a well-defined business.

In 2009, the Obama Government created a new body called the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). ARPA-E had the explicit agenda of supporting new energy technologies, renewable energies, new battery technologies, advanced vehicles, power electronics, etc. One of the not so well-known beneficiaries of the ARPA-E support is Tesla, which got a loan of over half a billion dollars and successfully returned it as well. But often, thanks to the republicans, the company that is brought up is Solyndra, which lost half a billion.

Unlike Intel, where the science had been proved before the investors showed up with the cheques. With initiatives that ARPA-E supported, investors went and poured in the money as soon as these companies had received support. This disallowed them the slow incubation which would have allowed the science to become more robust before scale was forced.

Either way, you cannot hide good work.

The initiative forced a lot of thought about renewable energy and many countries, not just America started investing and competing in the area. Manufacturing scales rose, bringing costs down as a result of economies of scale. As competition rose, the costs moved down just as fast.

As a result…

During the first half of 2020, the world’s coal-generated power capacity shrank for the first time since at least the 1950s, according to the non-profit Global Energy Monitor. New plants haven’t entirely stopped coming online: The world added 18.3 GW of new coal-fired generation. But it retired plants capable of generating 21.2 GW, mostly in the US and Europe, cutting about 1% of total global capacity.

Source: Quartz

Currently, the US solar industry employs about 242,000 people and generates tens of billions of dollars of economic value. By the end of September 2019, the US had deployed over 2 million solar PV systems, totalling about 71,300 MW of solar capacity, and generating over 100 TWh of electricity (2019 total, est.). In 2018, solar generated about 1.5% of US electricity. Of all renewable energy generation, solar PV is expected to grow the fastest from now to 2050. Some solar-heavy grids, such as the California Independent System Operator have experienced times where over half of the demand was met by solar PV.

Source: Forbes

But not every country is headed in the same direction.

But we are seeing two energy worlds emerge. In China and India, coal plants still generate lots of jobs and electricity (as well as attract government subsidies). In industrialized countries, coal plants are closing down as the price of electricity from natural gas and renewables undercuts them, and climate regulations take hold. Net coal capacity would have been declining since 2018 without China, estimates Global Energy Monitor.

Source: Quartz

With the larger western countries moving in the direction of renewables, it is highly likely that the economics will soon tip over in favour of renewable energy. This will force India and China move in that direction if not for any other reason, just to save money and attract investments.

With commercial real estate completely out of action due to the shutdowns forced by the pandemic. The electricity consumption patterns are also changing.

The country’s coal imports registered a drop of 29.7 per cent to 48.84 million tonnes (MT) in the April-June period of the ongoing financial year, according to industry data.

[…]

“The weak trend in imports is in line with market expectation, given the continued high stockpile of coal in the system. The plunge in thermal power sector’s PLF (plant load factor) in the past couple of months and the sharp decline in cement output do not augur well for import demand in the coming month,” mjunction MD and CEO Vinaya Varma said.

Source: Business Standard

Solar is also finding new spaces in countries like India.

But one of the main challenges in building solar farms is finding the right place to do it. The land is relatively expensive in India and often has multiple owners, so the purchase of land involves many formalities. India’s high population density also puts pressure on the land, with an average of 464 people per square kilometre. Rooftop solar panels are one solution, but sunny space atop buildings is limited too.

In Gujarat, the answer has been to cover its canals with solar panels, as a solution that saves land, water and carbon emissions in one.

Source: BBC

While this is the state of electricity production, oil has taken a beating in the past few months. Some of the largest oil companies are looking toward renewables.

BP reported a $16.8 billion quarterly loss on Tuesday and cut its dividend in half — the first reduction since the Deepwater Horizon disaster a decade ago.

[…]

Mr Looney, though, was more specific in his investment goals, saying that he intended for BP in a decade to be investing around $5 billion a year in renewable energy like wind, solar and hydrogen, a clean-burning gas, about 10 times the current amount. BP’s capital spending is likely to be about $12 billion this year.

Source: New York Times

Even Shell is applying for tenders across Europe for renewable energy plants. Oil companies are some of the wealthiest and largest organisations on the planet. If they start moving towards renewable energy what hope does the coal syndicate have? Further, imagine the degree to which the cost of setting up renewables will fall if the scale increases.

2020 has been a year of enlightenment for oil companies. They have seen how swiftly things can change for them. With the rising demand for EV and the coalition against climate change, the writing is on the wall. They are reacting before they have no time left to.

World oil demand will tumble by 9.06 million barrels per day (bpd) this year, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said in a monthly report, more than the 8.95 million bpd decline expected a month ago.

Source: Reuters

Having said that

Despite the steep fall in earnings, to $6.6 billion from $24.7 billion, the company said it would continue paying a quarterly dividend of $18.75 billion, almost three times its cash flow. Aramco is locked into paying such a large amount — $75 billion a year — because of commitments made in the run-up to its initial public offering on the Saudi Tadawul stock exchange.

Source: New York Times

With the decline of traditional energy businesses, all the new age carbon sequestration businesses are taking a hit. Almost all of these businesses had a model that involved making pollution generators pay for their sins. With the sin on decline…

The $1 billion systems, known as Petra Nova, was built in 2017 to catch CO2 from one unit of a coal plant near Houston. That plant is one of the dirtiest in Texas, both in terms of climate and air quality impacts, according to a Rice University study. Petra Nova was meant to cut the unit’s carbon footprint by about a third—roughly the equivalent of taking 300,000 cars off the road each year.

But on July 28, E&E News broke the story that the facility has been shuttered since May. And while the plant’s owners have said they plan to get it running again once the economy improves, Petra Nova’s shutdown exposes the weird market dynamics that could threaten the sustainability of carbon capture facilities in progress around the world.

Source: Quartz

Panic Buying

When the pandemic started in March, there were stories about how retailers were running out of stuff in their stores. There was a toilet paper emergency! The lockdowns came into place so suddenly, people did not know how to react. Amazon recorded greater sales last quarter than they did during last Christmas!

That means Amazon outdid the $87.4 billion in sales it recorded during the holidays last year when demand typically peaks before levelling out again. On the company’s earnings call yesterday, CFO Brian Olsavsky said it was “unheard of” to surpass those sales at this time of year—and then added that next quarter is also on track to surpass that level.

Source: Quartz

I think two things are happening. Jeff Bezos’ defence of Amazon being a small player because they don’t own 100% of retail is coming apart. With the pandemic, people are preferring to buy online rather than go to stores. Amazon has used every trick in the book to kill every other e-commerce competitor. There is no other legitimate competitor left!

The not so well to do in America have been receiving a $600 cheque. In many cases, I think this amount supersedes their normal income. More money in hand has meant more spending power, which in turn has implied greater sales for Amazon. Those cheques stopped on 1st August.

Now that retail is dying…

The e-commerce juggernaut has been in talks with Simon Property Group, the largest mall owner in the US, about turning some of the spaces occupied by its anchor department stores into distribution centres, according to the Wall Street Journal. The talks have focused on spaces held by JC Penney, which filed for bankruptcy in May, and Sears, which has struggled since its 2018 bankruptcy filing.

Source: Quartz

In this case, Amazon seems to be panic buying warehousing!

Shoot yourself in the foot and saw your hand off

The year that the USA decided to shove itself down the path of reducing their influence globally by electing Trump and turning itself into a joke, the UK decided to leave the European Union. 3 Prime Ministers and a lot of dilly-dallying later the Brexit will be complete on the 31st December 2020. The fact that the pandemic struck the same year is a little more than inconvenient. Britain was supposed to be in economic shambles without a deal with the EU as it is. Now they are in a recession.

The economy shrank 20.4% compared with the first three months of the year.

Household spending plunged as shops were ordered to close, while factory and construction output also fell.

Source: BBC

I am sure they are not looking forward to the new year!

Moving Away

A couple of weeks ago when I had written about China, I had mentioned about the China Vs Rest of the World dynamic that is developing. The one lessons most countries have learnt is that they never want to create an economic situation where they have all their eggs in one basket. In no other arena can be it be more obviously seen as in the case of manufacturing. Under pressure is Foxconn, a Taiwanese company which is responsible for a massive amount of electronics manufacturing. The chairman of the companies said China’s days are over.

“No matter if it’s India, Southeast Asia or the Americas, there will be a manufacturing ecosystem in each,” Liu said, adding that while China will still play a key role in Foxconn’s manufacturing empire, the country’s “days as the world’s factory are done.”

Source: Bloomberg

Launchers

I have harboured a deep fascination for space since I was a child. With the rise of private space startups, I was fascinated at the opportunities that it opens up. At the same time, I was quite dismayed to find the Indian space ecosystem to be filled with pocket satellite makers. I heard about Skyroot a couple of years ago and upon reading about them made it a point to meet Pavan, the Founder & CEO, when I visited Hyderabad. A group of scientists who had quit their jobs at ISRO and decided to create India’s first private space launch startup.

Pavan was very agreeable and I spent a good hour speaking to him. They had found initial support from Mukesh Bansal of Myntra and Cult fame. I was thrilled to read that they completed their first test firing.

Indian aerospace startup Skyroot Aerospace successfully test-fired an upper-stage rocket engine, which is the third and fourth stage of a traditional multi-stage rocket, fired at high altitude and designed to operate with little or no atmospheric pressure. Skyroot has thus become the first Indian private company to demonstrate the capability of building an indigenous rocket engine. 

Source: Inc42

I suppose their cause was helped in a major way with the support that was announced for Private Space Companies as a part of the “Stimulus” package. They moved out of a legal grey area and this would have helped them a great deal.

I am thrilled, this will be the first space launch startup from India and I can’t wait to hear Elon Musk begin to weep and whine about it. Why? They will be way cheaper than SpaceX.

Nine Lives

They say a cat has nine lives. Looks like Kodak is a cat. Kodak is a company that is immediately associated with photography. The one thing that traditional photography involves a lot of is chemicals. Do you know another thing that has a lot of chemicals in it – Drugs. So Kodak is pivoting to become a pharmaceutical company. Also, because they got money for nothin’.

Last week, the US federal government announced a first-of-its-kind loan to Eastman Kodak, a US-based company once known for its leadership in the film photography industry. Kodak will be using the $765 million to begin producing components for generic drugs—specifically, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the chemicals that make a drug work.

Source: Quartz

Their share price jumped 15X before cooling off! And somehow the company got into trouble even before the loan came in – for?

Kodak’s manufacturing may be on hold, however, until the US Securities and Exchange Commission completes an investigation regarding the disclosure of the federal loan. Kodak offered its chief executive 2 million stock options on July 27—the same day it leaked details of the loan to reporters. The subsequent news reports and the official announcement, which Kodak made public on July 28, caused share prices to skyrocket.

Source: Quartz

Human greed!

Signing off…

Categories
Entrepreneurship

The evolution of IoT

There has been a lot of work that has gone into IoT devices and I often find startups which pitch consumer facing IoT solutions to me. Apart from the fact that there is zero differentiation and high reproducibility, my questions often hang around whether people feel the pain or not?

Do you ever WANT to switch off the fan using your smartphone but are unable to?

I get a lot of round about answers but nothing really convincing has ever been said.

My next question surrounds implementation. The need to find and bring in an electrician in order to install any of these devices means the friction is just too high.

 

If this then what?

I was reading a fascinating blog by Ben Evans over the weekend where he postulates that the smart home will start with smart devices like your fridge and TV and so on. In fact we are already seeing many of these in use across homes. The trouble – how do you interface with them? Voice based devices like Alexa might be the answer.

As the behaviour sets in, you may just WANT to tell Alexa to switch off the lights.

I am extremely skeptical about this, as I explained in detail here. Essentially, I think this mischaracterises the nature of the breakthroughs that machine learning has given us in voice recognition: we can now transcribe audio to text, and we can turn text into a structured query, but have no scalable way to be able to answer more and more kinds of such structured queries. ML means we can use voice to fill in dialogue boxes, but the dialogue boxes still need to be created, one at a time, by a programmer in a cubicle somewhere. That is, voice is an IVR – a tree. We can now match a spoken, natural language request to the right branch on the tree perfectly, but we have no way to add more branches except by writing them one at a time by hand. If Alexa or Siri or Google Assistant can give you cricket scores but not rugby, it’s because someone wrote the cricket score module, by hand, but hasn’t written a rugby score module yet.

Worse, even if you do create hundreds or thousands of such queries (which Amazon is trying to do with Alexa Skills), you haven’t solved the problem, since there is no way for the user to know what they can ask, nor remember what skills Alexa does and does not have. The ideal number of skills for such a system is either 3 or infinity, but not 50 or 5000.

This means voice can work very well in narrow domains where you know what people might ask and, crucially, where the user knows what they can and cannot ask, but it does not work if you place it in a general context. That, I turn, means I see these devices as, well, accessories. They cannot replace a smartphone, tablet or PC as your primary device.

This has quite possibly been the undoing of the general purpose smart assistant that Apple wanted Siri to be. While at the same time might be the impetus for creating a device that can do very predictable things. If you are doing anything in the area of IoT, I would advice this as mandatory reading.

 

My thoughts

The more I think about it, the more it feels like the IoT revolution will actually start out from TV, Fridge, Microwave Oven, Etc. The things that we are used to having around at our homes already and are behaviourally more likely to buy. As these devices get connected and the habit of controlling them through voice becomes more natural to us, we will then think about moving to smart lights and so on which takes a bit more effort to setup. But the advantages of voice based interaction would far outweigh the friction of setting up the smart power plug.

This transition will be years in the making. Because we do not tend to purchase a fridge, a TV or a microwave every other year, we buy them every 5 or even 10 years!

For a startup, consumer IoT does not look like the right place to be at this point in time. Many of them are just too early to the market with the wrong product!

Categories
Entrepreneurship

Certainty

In life the things that you do depend on the degree of certainty.

A few days back Salma mailed this image and asked me which company seems to have the best revenue split.

The instinctive answer was to say – Microsoft. They seem to the most diversified. They are not dependent on any one stream of revenue for their survival. Facebook seems the most skewed; If anything was to disrupt advertising altogether, their business would be in turmoil.

Yesterday, I was reading Zero to One by Peter Theil and he made a very pertinent point in there. If you had the opportunity to do something that you knew would not fail, would you put all of your efforts behind it or would you diversify and pursue multiple opportunities. Most successes are a result of determined people acting with belief and putting all of their efforts behind it to make it a success.

He defined the category of people as:

  • Definitely Optimistic – Is certain of a great future and works towards it
  • Definitely Pessimistic – Is certain of failure waiting around the corner and is always bracing for it
  • Indefinitely Optimistic – Is unsure of the future but thinks it will all work out fine
  • Indefinitely Pessimistic – Is unsure of the future but thinks there is a surprise waiting around the corner

Now using this categorisation when you look at the above graphs, the one thing that becomes clear is Facebook is Definitely Optimistic – They are certain about their plans and they think they know what is about to come and are ready for it.

At the same time Microsoft is a clear example of confusion. Given that it is an American company I would say that they are Indefinitely Optimistic. The graph is a clear representation of the fact that they do not know which segment is going to be their cash cow. They are doing everything and  hoping something will go on to become big. At the same time they lack the conviction to say which one and focus more on it. If you make a graph for Microsoft of the early 2000’s, I am sure it would not resemble this. Windows and Office were the flag bearers for Microsoft and they put all of their efforts behind it.

Google and Amazon still have a high skew towards one of their revenue channels because they are Definite about it. Apple looks diversified but a large portion of their services revenue is all thanks to the iPhone that their users use every day. If you look at it from that perspective in all the three cases almost three quarters of their revenue comes from one thing that they do very well.

As a startup it is even more important not to diversify into too many revenue streams since it is very hard to be great at too many things. Be great at one thing and expand that revenue stream as rapidly as you can. You may undertake support activities but a majority of your income will come out of one or two things you do really well. This is also referred to as Pareto Principle – 80% of the effect comes from 20% of the cause. In business 80% of the income comes from 20% of the clients

Would you put all the wood behind one sharp arrow or many blunt ones?

Categories
General Thinking

Trolling – Who Benefits?

Flipkart Vs Snapdeal

There is a lot of discussion currently about the BigBillionDay campaign which Flipkart had run. Flipkart decided to make a splash about certain sale/discount/offers being available on their website on the day in order to generate shopper interest and therefore sales. Given the numbers that the company has ben publishing, we can only conclude that the campaign was a glorious success. They seem to have pulled of a $100 Million worth of sales in 10 hours, which translates to Rs. 1 Crores worth of goods sold each minute. I am not sure what you think, but I think its a big deal!

On the day of this sale, Snapdeal and Amazon were quick to jump on Flipkart’s heels to effectively try and piss on their parade. Both companies by the looks of it seem to have effectively trolled Flipkart, but who got the mileage at the end of the day?

We live in a world where marketing is about eye-balls. It does not matter how those eye-balls arrive. Look at Buzzfeed; crap journalism, but who cares?

Trolling is all about poking fun at your competitors weakness and exaggerating it. Its more like an ambush; wherever you seem to go, you come up against the same jokes. The trolls forget the basic human instinct. When somebody is getting beaten everyone likes to stand around and watch.

Have you ever been in a situation where some team is giving another a drubbing; even if you have no particular interest in the sport, you just tune in to see how the drubbing is taking place? (I have watched a lot of 8-0 football matches and almost none which ended 0-0) How many of you watched or talked about the Germany Vs Brazil match in the World Cup while not having watched all of the WC matches? Same psychology at play.

When you start trolling and poking fun, people want to see the action first hand.

We live in a digital world where every business has a web presence; 50 years ago trolling might have been useful since it was hard to check the veracity. In the digital world we live in today, any such story results in a hit to the website of the company being trolled.

It gives the trolled an additional opportunity to convert the skeptic into a follower. In the world where eye-balls are all that matter, any publicity is good publicity. Trolls are also part of the publicity.

The problem is not when people talk bad of you, but when people stop talking about you.

I, for certain believe that Snapdeal put in considerable resources to make sure that the Flipkart #BigBillionDay was a raging success.

Even Internationally in a similar vein, Samsung keeps trolling Apple all the time. Things have come to a point where I feel Samsung cannot make an ad without mentioned Apple. In fact, when the bendgate broke out; Samsung, LG and others could not hold themselves back from trolling Apple, the moment the whiff of the story came out. iPhone 6 Plus seems to be selling like gangbusters. (4 Weeks+ wait list)

iPhone6

Apple cannot seem to produce enough iDevices to meet the demand; Samsung published their expectation for last quarter yesterday; 60% down on profits does not look very pretty.

So we arrives at the question, who is helped by all of the trolling. I think if we are to go by numbers, the end results are clear.

May the Trolls rest in peace.

Categories
General Thinking

Online Retail – The Revolution?

In a commerce class in school, I was taught that the point of a business is to earn a profit. Online retail startups have certainly caused me to question this notion.

 

Money, money everywhere; not a cent to be earned!

amazon-logo-a-smile-black  VS main-qimg-6775e2918eef64f05db9bc95aa673606

I find it quite amazing that there is immense investor confidence in a business that is unable to turn a profit even with millions of users on board. The best (perhaps the only) analogy for the current online retail scenario would be the airline industry.

When airlines started flying people in the 40’s; there was a lot of excitement about growth opportunities, and the loss-making nature meant that governments owned most airlines – more as status symbols rather than viable businesses. Eventually, private companies got into the game and operating running airlines as well. At the time, it was believed that with increasing connectivity between several cities as well as an increasing number of people using airlines, it was expected to become a viable business and a profitable business. But, as time progresses, we can see that this expectation has not been met. On every occasion, other reasons have been blamed for the lack of profitability in the sector: SARS, 9/11, hijacking, disappearing planes, and so on. Nonetheless, airlines have not been able to consistently turn a profit. This has resulted in many mergers and acquisitions, amalgamations, and even bankruptcy.

The only type of airlines that have been successful are the ones which have specialised in a very specific segment (corporate/business customers) or geographical region. The sad consequence is that one of the bigger airlines always acquires the profitable operation and tries to scale it, resulting in its inevitable decline.

Online retail, by comparison, is a far more recent phenomenon. Ideally, it should be compared with retail, which is what it promises to replace. To date, the success (in turnover) of online retail has relied on discounting. Walmart also relies on discounting, and by relying on any means necessary (paying extremely low wages, providing hard terms to manufacturers, etc.), they have managed to run a business that is highly profitable.

With Flipkart securing a funding of $1 billion, followed instantly by Amazon announcing to pump $2 billion, there has been a lot of commentary about online retail and the opportunities that lie ahead.

I think the point of a business is to create value, and that value creation results in profits. A retailer makes it easier for you to explore a multitude of products, compare brands and buy them. The online retail industry provides nearly the same service offering, along with the added convenience of being able to shop from home. The only difference is that the retailer sources the goods at a lower price than the one at which it is sold to you. Unfortunately, the selling price of products on online retail platforms is lower than their purchase price.

 

US Airways Amazon

Is it not amazing how similar the profitability trends seem? Essentially, there is none.

US Airways Vs. Amazon

Different industries, same struggle.

 

Now, I understand that for certain businesses, in order to be profitable, you need to have a minimum base of customers. Social Networks are shining examples of how that works. Having said that, if you cannot make something work profitably with 20 million customers, how will ramping that number up to 100 million make any difference? Even if you do make a profit, the margins are going to be in the low single digit percentages. I find it hard to justify investing billions of dollars to generate a profit in the millions (and most likely tens of millions, and not hundreds).

 

WACC

This chart sourced from an IATA’s 2013 report shows how well the returns have worked out for the airline industry. Investor value destruction!

 

I believe the online retail industry is headed the same way, at least from the point of view of “all-under-one-roof” retailers.

Similar to the case of airlines, there is some oasis of hope. There are online retail firms, not unlike the airline industry, which specialise in a very narrow segment of product offerings. DollarShaveClub, Bonobos, NastyGal, Diapers.com, and closer home, Myntra.com, are examples of models that work well. Unfortunately, similar to the airline industry, these smaller firms, which will never have very high turnovers, are acquired by larger players, since it makes for a nice press release and helps keep investors at bay. At the time of acquisition, the larger firm tries to “integrate the business” and benefit from the “synergies”, and end up running the business to the ground. If they leave it alone, it may just work – it has shown success in its current form after all! This has happened time and again in the airline industry; it remains to be seen how it plays out in online retail.

So why the investments? Well, if we come back to Flipkart, the investors invest a large sum of money into the company because it furthers the company’s chances of an IPO. If the company is sitting on $500 million in cash in 12 months’ time and files for IPO, they will certainly be able to sell through the IPO and exit neatly. The CEO, on behalf of the investors, made clear the hopes that would be sold to IPO investors – A $100 billion valuation. So, even if they project a $20 billion valuation at the time of listing, which would be close to three times the valuation at which the funds were raised (if rumours are to be believed); as compared to $100 billion, it will still appear as though there is still more value to be unlocked. And as far the current investors are concerned, 300% in 12 months is not too bad a deal, is it?

If Amazon were to be used as a benchmark, the possibility of running an online retail business with decent profit margins seems remote. To add to that, Amazon itself has always been ready to enter into a price war with anyone who strays into its territory, since its investors seem quite satisfied even if the company posts a loss. Therefore, if profits ever exist, they will always be extremely low.

Will Flipkart be able to keep hopes up without turning a profit? Well, only time will tell!