Online food-ordering site Foodpanda lays off 300 employees in India

Rocket Internet-backed online food ordering service Foodpanda’s India unit has laid off over 300 people, joining rivals Zomato, Swiggy and TinyOwl in scaling down its business in the country to curb cash burn.

The downsizing, which was confirmed by Foodpanda India CEO Saurabh Kochhar, will see the company losing close to 15 per cent of its staff from across business segments. The layoffs will be restricted only to Foodpanda’s Indian business.

“While we continued to invest in processes and technology we also had to take some difficult decisions but we believe them to be necessary steps on our path to become sustainable and profitable within the targeted timeline,” said Kochhar, in a statement.

The company claims the layoffs were triggered due to the achievement of “about 98% automation rate in order processing”, which meant it needed fewer staffers to handle the same amount of orders. The biggest chunk of layoffs - 250 employees - came from the shutting down of an in-house call centre.

The 4G era: Will it change the game for media firms?

The data party just began. Earlier this month, Vodafone launched its 4Gservice in Kerala. This Sunday, Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries launched Lyf, its 4G-enabled phone, and its Jio 4G services - only for employees currently. A full commercial launch is due in end March or early April 2016. Just before Jio, came Idea. Airtel and Aircel have already launched their 4G services.

4G, or LTE as it is called globally, compresses huge amounts of data making it easier to transport it over the airwaves. This means “better speeds and, therefore, more video consumption. And anything that pushes up video consumption is good for us,” says Sudhanshu Vats, group CEO, Viacom18 Media.

That is an understatement. 4G, say analysts, is the single biggest game changer in the Rs 100,000-crore market for media and entertainment in India. Largely because it could trigger massive consumption of mobile video, expanding the market for everything - from films and music to newspapers and TV shows. And because it brings the big boys, the telecom and broadband network operators, back into the media game.