In Brief: Flipkart runs pilot in Hyd to deliver fruits, vegetables; Paytm to scale up e-lending business

Walmart-owned ecommerce company Flipkart has started a pilot project in Hyderabad to deliver fresh fruits and vegetables in partnership with vendors on its marketplace, The Economic Times reported. A top executive told ET that the license application is getting processed. In October, it registered an entity, Flipkart FarmerMart, with an authorised equity capital of Rs 1,845 crore, in line with the government’s FDI (foreign direct investment) policy, which allows 100% FDI in food retail for food produced and manufactured in the country, the report said.

Paytm to scale up online lending business

One97 Communications, which owns and operates digital payments platform Paytm, is planning to scale up its online lending business across India, The Economic Times reported. The Noida headquartered company recently launched all-in-one QR (quick response) for merchants to accept unlimited payments through Paytm Wallet, Rupay Cards and all UPI-based payment apps directly into their bank account free of cost. The report showed that in July last year, the company partnered with Clix Capital to offer loans as a deferred payment option for consumers and to merchants as credit lines. The Economic Times, citing Paytm senior vice president Saurabh Sharma, said that it has so far been a pilot run that has provided inside-case study and the plan now is to scale it up.

HPE eHCs facilitate over a million patient visits in India

Multinational enterprise information technology company HPE (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise) has announced that its eHCs (eHealth Centres) have, to date, facilitated over a million patient visits across India. The company, via its digital healthcare solution, offers a remote diagnosis for free in underserved communities, it said in a statement. The San Jose, California headquartered company said that the cloud computing-enabled eHCs, which connect patients with highly-skilled medics, are designed to fit and be deployed in a standard shipping container . “... We strive to develop innovative models such as eHCs to make our world better. The one million eHC patient visits is a significant milestone in reaffirming our commitment to building a culture of innovation that positively impacts local communities across the country,” Som Satsangi, managing director (India), HPE, said. The company currently has over 130 eHCs deployed across 18 states in the country.

Worldwide semiconductor revenue down 11.9% in 2019: Gartner

The worldwide semiconductor revenue totaled $418.3 billion in 2019, down 11.9% from 2018, according to research firm Gartner. The firm, in its research, showed that Intel regained the top spot in the market, followed by Samsung. “The memory market, which accounted for 26.7% of semiconductor sales in 2019, experienced a 31.5% decline in revenue in 2019,” Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner, said. Gartner found that optoelectronics has recorded the best performance of any device category due to the increasing number of cameras in smartphones.