BIG IDEA | PAGE 22 BRANDWAGON | PAGE 9 Capitalisingonopportunity tobuildlargeF&Bbrand INTERNATIONAL | PAGE 11 Did Parle Marie bite more than it can chew? CHENNAI/KOCHI, MONDAY, JUNE 2, 2025 Bangladesh indicts Hasina on mass murder charges FOLLOW US ON TWITTER & FACEBOOK. APP AVAILABLE ON APP STORE & PLAYSTORE WWW.FINANCIALEXPRESS.COM READ TO LEAD VOL NO. XLVI 22, 22 PAGES, `12 P U B L I S H E D F R O M : A H M E D A B A D , B E N G A L U R U , C H A N D I G A R H , C H E N N A I , H Y D E R A B A D , K O C H I , K O L K ATA , L U C K N O W, M U M B A I , N E W D E L H I , P U N E Arm yourself with a defence fund Keep allocation within 10% of total equity exposure ■ PERSONAL FINANCE, P7 2024 Apr 2.37 May 2.01 Mar 1.96 Feb 1.84 Jan 1.95 Dec 1.77 Nov 1.82 Oct 1.87 Sep 1.73 0 Jul 1.82 4 Aug 1.74 0.5 Jun 1.74 8 May 1.73 1 0 2025 ■ Cess collection stands at `12,879 cr imported goods rises 25.2% to `51,266 cr figuresreportedforMay,which relate to transactions in the first month of FY26, at `2.01 lakh crore, would provide significantfiscalheadroomforthe government,” said M S Mani, partner at Deloitte India. The GST revenues from imports are 25% higher compared with the same month last year indicates a notable acceleration in inbound trade, even amid global tariff headwinds. With refunds showing an annual decline of 4%, the net GST revenue rose 20.4% to about `1.74 lakh crore in May. Total tax refunds stood at `27,210 crore comparedwith `28,357 crore in the year-ago month. VIVEAT SUSAN PINTO Mumbai, June 1 A SURGE IN rural consumption over recent quarters has prompted fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) firms to ramp up efforts in India’s hinterlands. With urban demand expectedtorecovermoregradually,leadingFMCGplayersare expanding theirdirect distribution networks in rural areas, aggressivelylaunchingsmaller pack sizes, and undertaking hyper-local promotions to tap into rising rural demand. Companies are deploying a range of grassroots marketing strategies—including door-todoorcampaignswithfreesamples and trial packs, promotionaldanglersatvillagekirana stores,salespromotionsatlocal fairsorhaats,andbuy-one-get- FY22 13.9 FY23 9.9 26.6 FY24 FY25 RM to sales FY22 Growth % (3,035 comapnies) 18.7 FY23 Tax 29.0 11.8 26.6 6.6 wage bill had gone up by 12.7% in FY24 and 16.8% a year before. The trend holds even when banks and financials are excluded. The employeebillwentupby7%in 2024-25, again the slowest rise in fouryears. GRASSROOTS MARKETING Urban v/s rural: Volume growth (%) 7.2 5.3 Jan-Mar 2024 4.9 5.8 1.3 1.9 Apr-Jun Jul-Sep 2024 2024 ROHIT JAWA CEO & MD, HUL 6.5 FY23 -7.5 FY25 -1.7 Employee expenses 12.6 16.8 FY22 FY23 12.7 7.0 FY24 FY25 one (BOGO) offers that include utilityitems like jars and utensils—tocapturetheattentionof rural consumers and drive sales,top executives said. “Rural initiatives had slowed when urban growth outpaced rural. But now that rural demand has rebounded and surpassed urban growth, companies are bringing their focus back on rural markets,” said Mohit Malhotra, CEO of WHILE LARGE LANGUAGE models (LLMs) like GPT-4 and Gemini capture global headlines and attract majorinstitutional investment — including from the government, which recently tapped four startups to develop them — a quieter but powerful shift is unfolding in the background. Small language models (SLMs) are rapidly gaining traction in India, driven by their affordability, efficiency, and realworld relevance in resourceconstrained environments. There’s a reason for this. Unliketheirlargercounterparts, SLMs are compact,energy-efficient, and designed to operate directlyonlocaldevices,without needing continuous cloud access.Startupfounderssaythis makes them well-suited for Indian use cases, especially in regions with limited Internet connectivity or variable com- ■ Unlike LLMs, SLMs are compact, energyefficient, and designed to operate directly on local devices ■ This makes them wellsuited for Indian use cases, especially in regions with limited Internet connectivity ■ SLMs bring precision, privacy, and performance to environments that LLMs can’t easily serve ■ India’s linguistic diversity further boosts the relevance of SLMs ■ SLM adoption by small and mid-sized enterprises will grow at least fivefold by FY26, say experts puting infrastructure. “SLMs are in demand because they are ideal for building affordable, energyefficient, and privacy-friendly AI solutions,”saidAnkush Sabharwal, founder and CEO of CoRover, a conversational AI platform. “They can run directly on devices without needing cloud servers, protect sensitive data, and lower both cost and energy usage.” To meet this growing demand, CoRover launched BharatGPT Mini, a compact SLM,inDecember2024.Inless than five months, most of the platform’s 18,000 users — spanning enterprises, researchers, and developers — have adopted the model. The company now expects a 60–70% increase in project volumeoverthenextyear,with a target ofcrossing one million implementations. “BharatGPTMiniintegrates seamlessly across native apps, voice interfaces, IoT devices, and manufacturing systems,” Sabharwal noted. “It ensures reliable performance even in 9.2 4.2 8.4 2.6 Oct-Dec 2024 Jan-Mar 2025 MOHIT MALHOTRA CEO, DABUR INDIA Aresurgence inruralareas iscrucial forour overallsales performance tribution network, we have introducedvalueproductbundles across categories—from hairoilsandoralcaretohealthcareandfoodsupplements—at `10, `20, `50, and `100 price points,”he said. Rival Hindustan Unilever (HUL), the country’s largest FMCGcompany,earns35–40% of its revenue from rural areas. Continued on Page 11 AirIndia in talks formajor newnarrow-bodyjet order TIM HEPHER, ADITI SHAH & RAJESH KUMAR SINGH New Delhi, June 1 TATA GROUP’S AIR India is in talkswithAirbusandBoeingfor a major new aircraft order including some 200 extra single-aisle planes, topping up a mammoth deal in 2023 as the former statecarrierpursuesa multi-billion-dollarrevamp, industry sources said. The order discussions, which the sources said could involve hundredsofairplanesintotalspread across various sizes,expand on previouslyreporteddiscussions forafurtherbatchoflargewidebodyaircraft,theyadded. In those talks, Boeing is edging forward as the frontrunner to sell more of its 777X jets,two of the sources said. AirIndia,BoeingandAirbus all declined to comment. AIMING REVAMP ■ Air India placed a then-record order for 470 Continued on Page 11 planes from Boeing and Airbus in 2023 ■ The potential new narrow-body jet order provisionally involved 200 aircraft IndiGo orders 30 more A350 planes INDIGO ANNOUNCED AN order for 30 more Airbus A350 aircraft, taking its total confirmed wide-body A350 orders to 60. This development comes after it placed its first firm order for 30 A350-900 aircraft in April 2024. ■ PAGE 4 Smalllanguagemodelsgainingbigtraction DRIVING EFFICIENCY Rural Dabur India. Dabur derives approximately 45–50% of its total sales from rural India—the highestamongdomesticFMCG players—making rural performance crucial for its overall growth,Malhotra added. “Wereachover131,000villages,withdirectaccesstomore than 1.42 million outlets, out of a total reach of nearly 8 million. To fully leverage this dis- They meet startups' rising demand for compact and efficientAI S SHANTHI Bengaluru, June 1 Urban Wecontinuednotonlyto digitiseourroute-to-market approach,butalsotoempower ourtraditionaltradepartners Continued on Page 11 Operating profit 24.5 AYANTI BERA Bengaluru, June 1 Continued on Page 11 MODEST PERFORMANCE Net sales Small-town bet delivers the goods for Meesho A deeper look into workforce trends shows that several large corporations are paring their headcount and that hiring in the ITsector has moderated. Continued on Page 11 India Inc operating profit growth slowest in 4years DESPITE COST-CUTTING efforts, India Inc’s operating profit growth dipped to 9.9% in FY25—the slowest pace in the past four years. The subdued earnings performance comes on the back of a modest 6.2% rise in net sales, marking a second consecutive year of single-digit topline growth. The data relates to a universe of 3,035 companies, banks and financials. The topline growth drops to just 4.9% in 2024-25 if banks and financials are excluded from the sample. Manufacturing companies benefited from stable commodity prices, which helped them manage raw material costs.However,firms also kept a tight lid on other expenses— particularlyemployee costs.In FY25,employee expenses rose just7%,theslowestincreasein fouryears.Forcomparison,the distribution BACKED BY A sharp focus on small towns and low-cost sellers, e-commerce startup Meesho has emerged as the country’s third-largest online retail platform by gross merchandise value (GMV), positioning itself for a potential public market debut. Accordingtoarecentreport by brokerage firm CLSA, Meesho has reached a GMV run rate of $6.2 billion for FY25. The report projects Meesho’s market share will climb from 8.5% to 10% over the next six years, even as larger rivals Amazon and Flipkart see marginal declines. Founded in 2015, Meesho carved a unique path through India’s crowded e-commerce landscape.Insteadof targeting premium urban customers, it targeted price-sensitive consumers in Tier 2, Tier 3, and rural regions. This differentiated approach has built strong traction among first-time Internet shoppers and smallscale sellers. Today, Meesho boastsover187millionannual transacting users and has achieved profitability—an uncommon milestone forhorizontal e-commerce players. Meesho began its journey as Fashnear, a hyperlocal fashion discovery app. However, it quickly pivoted upon recognising the dominance of unbranded goods in e-commerce. WAGE BILLRISES BYJUST7% KISHOR KADAM New Delhi, June 1 ● Focus on direct ■ Revenue from FY25 FY24 FY23 FY22 FE SPECIAL 12 1.5 6.2 The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has voiced disagreement over the recommendations on spectrum allocation for satellite-based communication services issued by the Trai, reports Urvi Malvania. ■ PAGE 5 20 16 FY25 COAI terms Trai satellite spectrum charges as ‘unfair’ 16.4 10 8.2 THE CENTRE IS considering extending the credit guarantee cover under the newly-launched Mutual Credit Guarantee Scheme for MSMEs in manufacturing to select services sectors that support local production, reports Prasanta Sahu. ■ PAGE 2 2 GST Collections (` lakh crore, LHS) % growth (y-o-y, RHS) FY24 MSME credit cover may be extended to select services 2.5 21.7 PASSENGER VEHICLE WHOLESALES saw a marginal uptick of just 0.1% in May, reaching 352,000 units, according to sources, reports Nitin Kumar. The figure signals a subdued market as retail sales were down 1% y-o-y. ■ PAGE 4 GROSS GOODS AND services tax (GST) collections rose 16.4% on year to `2.01 lakh crore in May, reflecting April transactions, indicating an uptick in goods shipments and consumption in the first month of 2025-26. Thecollectionshadreached a record high of `2.37 lakh crore in April 2025, as March saw the year-end rush of shipments from factories and better compliance. According to official data, GST revenue from domestic transactions grew 13.7% to `1.5 lakh crore,while revenue from imported goods saw a sharp 25.2% rise to `51,266 crore, signaling a pickup in external demand despite recent tariff-related uncertainties. The gross collection includes central GST receipts of `35,434 crore, state GST receipts of `43,902 crore,and Integrated GST (IGST) receipts of `1.09 lakh crore. Cess collection stood at `12,879 crore in May. “Compared to the FY25 average monthly GST collections of `1.84 lakh crore, the FY23 May car sales flat, dealer dispatches rise just 0.1% POSITIVE OUTLOOK FE BUREAU New Delhi, June 1 25.8 THE GOVT HAS streamlined procedures for clearing foreign direct investment (FDI) proposals from Chinese companies, significantly reducing the time taken to process such applications, a senior official said, reports Mukesh Jagota. ■ PAGE 3 GSTkeepsuptempo inMay,grows16.4% FY22 Govt fast-tracks FDI approvals for Chinese firms FMCG firms ramp up rural play Source: NielsenIQ REVENUE FROM DOMESTICTRANSACTIONS UP13.7% IN THE NEWS offline mode and offers a practical, cost-effective alternative to cloud-dependent LLMs.” LLMslikeGPT-4andGemini are highly capable but come with significant infrastructure demands.Thisispreciselywhere SLMs find theiredge.“SLMs are gaining traction because they bringprecision,privacy,andperformancetoenvironmentsthat LLMs can’t easily serve — especiallyinacountryasdiverseand dynamic as India,” said Krishna Rangasayee, CEO and founder of SiMa.ai. SiMa.ai recently launched Modalix, a machine learning system-on-chip (MLSoC) platform built to support compact, high-performance models like SLMs.ModalixenablesAImodels like LLaMA,LLaVA,Gemma, andDeepSeektorundirectlyon devices such as drones,surveillancesystems,industrialrobots, and medical equipment — no cloud connection required. Continued on Page 11 CHENNAI/KOCHI ■ India's aviation market is expanding at ~7% a year, Airbus forecasts say ■ Aircraft orders typically take months of closely held talks to negotiate ■ The orders come at a time when plane makers are struggling with supply chain issues Emirates pitches for open access LEADING GULF CARRIER Emirates president Sir Tim Clark on Sunday pitched for open access to the Indian market, saying that the restrictive practices on bilateral flying rights does not make sense. ■ PAGE 4