Vandana is based in Delhi. She covers vertically focussed startups in consumer internet space and also writes on travel tech and smartphones for The Ken. She has spent 13 years in journalism covering a wide range of subjects- equity markets, mutual funds to education and skilling, working at organisations such as Business Standard, CNBC TV18 and The Week in the past.
Top Comments by Vandana
Hero Group takes a leap of faith with its deep tech ambitions
I have mentioned this drawback in the story Yagna.
Vandana
A citizenship test for India's smartphone space
Hi Rajiv, From what I understand and something that sources also tell me- local content would not be more than 20-25% for Lava and Micromax. As for your second question, the online buyers are mostly tech- savvy metro customers who do not give into sentiments so easily. For them, price to performance is very important. On the offline side though, there is lot of push factor by the shopkeeper that works. Moreover, a part of the offline customer base is credulous and for them the noise around national issues influences buying decisions. Plants are operating at 30% because of Covid.
Vandana
Investor-founder feud takes the wind out of TravelTriangle’s sails
Dear Rajiv, As journalists writing on the dynamic world of startups, sometimes it's important to take note of the event itself. The event in this case is not a small one. It's one of the bigger startups in travel space with fund raise of more than $47 million. The purpose of this story was not to look at the trend of investors Vs founders but focus on one company and where did things go wrong. The fact that travel-tech companies are not in the best of shape right now and all this is happening is worth taking note. But having said that, I take your suggestion and will look into it.
Vandana
Investor-founder feud takes the wind out of TravelTriangle’s sails
Thanks for your suggestion Srikanth. We will look into it.
Vandana
A Covid compass for Airbnb in India
Hi Vivek, I am not sure if they have closed the round. This is the FT story, I took reference from- https://www.ft.com/content/bc26db3c-34dd-4ba9-bf0b-2ef422bfd3b6
Vandana
A Covid compass for Airbnb in India
Hi Rishabh, Everybody in the travel sector agrees that international travel will remain severely affected for sometime. US is still firmly in grip of Covid-19 and so are some other countries. Companies focussing on the domestic travel opportunity will stand to gain and survive the storm
Vandana
A Covid compass for Airbnb in India
Hi Mayank, the idea was to tell Airbnb's India story. There are multitude of articles globally, also carried by indian publications that doesn't talk about their travails in one of the fastest growing travel markets
Vandana
Covid-19 forces co-living platforms to get houses in order
Hi Venkitesh, As mentioned in the story, landlords are not too happy about it. But they don't have a choice. From what I understand, the landlords stand to lose in the short term in a revenue share deal because occupancies are not there. But in the longer term, a revenue share deal should benefit the landlords as he will be taking a large part of the risk. The operator profit margin will obviously go down in such a scenario.
Vandana
Covid-19 forces co-living platforms to get houses in order
The logistics one is an important point Ankit. But operators may not look at new property addition for sometime. I agree the growing unemployment will be a huge negative for co-living.
Vandana
Covid-19 forces co-living platforms to get houses in order
Absolutely right Chetan. Despite being in a nascent stage, there was some froth that had built up. Hopefully Covid-19 will correct that and bring more sanity to the sector. The fundamental growth story remains intact.
Vandana
Covid-19 forces co-living platforms to get houses in order
Hi Rishabh, It's in terms of room growth.
Vandana
Xiaomi’s smart plan to continue its Indian summer
Hi Shelja, I am not very clear what you mean by in-depth analysis. There are hardly any stories out there on Xiaomi's ecosystem business and I tried my best to give insights on where this ecosystem vertical in India stands. As for the market share numbers- Xiaomi does not disclose numbers category wise in appliances. There's just one aggregated number on revenue for this vertical, which I have mentioned in the piece. In India as well, the disclosed numbers are too few.
Vandana
A Covid compass for Airbnb in India
Hi Vivek, I am not sure if they have closed the round. This is the FT story, I took reference from- https://www.ft.com/content/bc26db3c-34dd-4ba9-bf0b-2ef422bfd3b6
Vandana
A Covid compass for Airbnb in India
Hi Rishabh, Everybody in the travel sector agrees that international travel will remain severely affected for sometime. US is still firmly in grip of Covid-19 and so are some other countries. Companies focussing on the domestic travel opportunity will stand to gain and survive the storm
Vandana
A Covid compass for Airbnb in India
Hi Mayank, the idea was to tell Airbnb's India story. There are multitude of articles globally, also carried by indian publications that doesn't talk about their travails in one of the fastest growing travel markets
Vandana
Xiaomi’s smart plan to continue its Indian summer
Hi Shelja, I am not very clear what you mean by in-depth analysis. There are hardly any stories out there on Xiaomi's ecosystem business and I tried my best to give insights on where this ecosystem vertical in India stands. As for the market share numbers- Xiaomi does not disclose numbers category wise in appliances. There's just one aggregated number on revenue for this vertical, which I have mentioned in the piece. In India as well, the disclosed numbers are too few.
Vandana