 Three things happened in the world of tech in the past few days. Apple opened its first store in India. Blinket had to temporarily shut shop in several parts of Delhi and CR as its riders went on strike. And Infosys, the poster boy of India's IT revolution, took a hammering at the stock markets after it announced that its profits are likely to slow down this year. Now, these seem like three unconnected events, right? But together, they tell us a story about India's economy, especially what matters to white-collar middle-class households. Let us begin with Apple. You must have seen the videos of Tim Koch opening the first company-owned store in Mumbai's Bandrakurla complex. Now, Apple had made it a mega event and if they wanted free publicity for it, India's media obliged. Apple has seen huge growth in India over the past couple of years. iPhone 13 was the largest selling premium smartphone in India in 2022. And Apple's total revenues in India were about Rs 33,500 crore in 21-22. That would have grown even more in the last fiscal. I don't have the data for it right now. Now, compare that to HUL, a Hindustan Unilever, which is India's largest FMCG company. Now, for those of you who don't know what FMCG stands for, it is fast-moving consumer goods like soaps, toothpaste, shampoo, hair oil, biscuits, packaged foods etc. HUL's total sales in 21-22 was about Rs 51,000 crore. This is a company that claims 9 out of 10 households in India use its products. Compare that to Apple. Less than 4% of Indians use iOS devices, which includes iPhones, iPads and all other Apple products. Now, this is understandable. HUL produces very cheap things and often targets the low-end customer with small packages like sachets of shampoo, for instance. Apple, on the other hand, prices its products above all other brands. Owning an Apple product has significant snob value. Not only in India but everywhere else in the world. Yet, Apple is already selling two-thirds as much in terms of monetary value as HUL in India. One reaches less than 4% of families, the other reaches 90% of households in India. It gives you a direct comparison of how income, wealth and purchasing power is distributed in this country. And that brings us to Blinkit. Those of you who have used the app know how brilliant it is. Blinkit literally delivers groceries to my doorstep faster than it takes me to walk down from my apartment to the store inside our society premises. How does it do it? It only keeps a limited number of everyday items and warehouse is close to you. The countdown begins as soon as you've paid and then the items you ordered are packed very quickly while red riders wait outside to rush to your home with the offer. They're super fast and because of their efficiency, Blinkit started out by paying them 50 rupees per order. That's what reports say. Now, customers don't pay for this. Normally, not only do you get big discounts on whatever you buy, once your order size crosses a certain threshold, delivery becomes free. But who bears the cost? Till now, Blinkit has been doing it. Reports say that Blinkit sold products worth some 300 crore rupees but it also lost almost as much money into a choir and then hold on to customers like me. This is all great as long as funds were flowing in including from Blinkit's parent company Zomato. But now, there's a funding winter in the tech starter space and Blinkit too has to cut costs so show some awnings. So, it first reduced rider fees to 25 rupees from 50 and now reports say that has been brought down to just 15 rupees per delivery. From 50 to 15 if the reports are correct. So, riders across the Delhi NCR region have gone on strike and that is why Blinkit has not been operating in many places including where I am. At least till the time of recording this video. This is another snapshot of the reality of our economy. India's startup boom only works when it doesn't have to make profits. As soon as it tries to make profits by cutting costs or charging customers, the business model becomes too unraveled. This tells us there is simply not enough demand in our economy even amongst the middle class to sustain consumption growth at currently prevailing prices. It also tells us that middle class consumption over the past three years has been significantly boosted through freebeats. Not from the government but from finance, capital, investing and startups. And that brings me to Infosys. Now, the COVID years have come as a bone for Indian IT. Everyone and everything went online and companies like Infosys and TCS got a lot of additional business to provide IT solutions and to run back offices for tech companies. This rise in demand made IT majors like Infosys rush to increase their bench strength. They also had to pay more because tech startups were picking up all the talent in the market at fabulous salaries. But then, COVID ended. People went back offline and demand fell. On top of that, big capitalist economies began to falter. That was a double whammy. Now, Infosys has declared that what is known as a soft guidance for this fiscal year. Its growth projections are lower than what the market wants, what its share price justifies. So the stock crashed in just a few sessions and since then several big brokerages have downgraded the company's shares. This too has far-reaching consequences for India's middle class, especially the young. Many of whom have spent years and a lot of their parents' money to become IT engineers. The job market for them has suddenly dried up, not just in the startup space, but now also in the established IT services space. This is bad news because it will drive down salaries and wages across the board. And that in turn will have an impact on overall demand in the economy, which again will make it difficult for the blinkets of the world to sell its goods and for Apple to sell its iPhones. That's how these seemingly disparate things are all connected. Everything is connected in economy, you just can't escape it. If you've liked this video, do press the like button and leave a comment. Also please subscribe to our channel and don't forget to press the bell icon so that you get to know every time a new video is uploaded. Until next time, goodbye.