The three biggest money losers among large listings in 2021 are all Chinese, thanks to the country’s widening tech crackdown.

Investors who bought Kuaishou Technology after the TikTok rival went public in Hong Kong have notched the widest peak-to-trough slump among global initial public offerings this year. New York-listed DiDi Global Inc., which was hit by a data security probe in July, has fallen 54% while video-app firm Bilibili Inc. is down by nearly half from peaks touched this year.

Kuaishou, which runs a video streaming app on the mainland, is down about 80% since it hit a Feb. 17 peak less than two weeks after it raised $5.4 billion in Hong Kong’s largest float in 2021. That is the largest plunge from a high among the 36 companies that raised more than $1.5 billion worldwide in 2021 from IPOs, Bloomberg data show.

Kuaishou’s slump illustrates the fizzling appetite for offshore-listed China shares since Beijing began clamping down on a wide swath of private firms.

Meanwhile, Robinhood Markets Inc., the popular trading app that listed just over two months ago,

ranks seventh, having tumbled 40% from its August peak.

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Apple on Thursday announced that its Diwali offer is live on Apple’s official India website and the company is offering first-gen AirPods for free with iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini.

Apple has published details of the festive offer on its India store page.

The Cupertino-based tech giant has slashed the prices of the iPhone 12 series after the launch of iPhone 13 series. The iPhone 12 mini 64GB model is available at Rs 59,900, and the 128GB option costs Rs 64,900. The 256GB model is selling at Rs 74,900.

On the other hand, the regular iPhone 12 (64GB) is priced at Rs 65,900, and the 128GB option is available at Rs 70,900. The 256GB storage variant is retailing at Rs 80,900.

Both models feature an advanced dual-camera system that delivers powerful computational photography features and the highest-quality video in a smartphone, with expansive edge-to-edge Super Retina XDR displays with OLED for a brighter, more immersive viewing experience.

The A14 Bionic — the fastest chip in a smartphone — powers every experience on iPhone 12 while efficiently managing battery life.

iPhone 12 features the first camera to shoot HDR video with Dolby Vision and is the first and only device in the world to enable an end-to-end Dolby Vision experience.

Recently, the company has unveiled the iPhone 13 series, featuring a smaller notch, repositioned rear cameras and improved performance.

iPhone 13 has been launched in three variants, starting from a 128GB variant. It is also available in 256GB and 512GB storage variants and comes in pink, blue, midnight, starlight, and (PRODUCT) RED.

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Xiaomi India on Wednesday announced that it has sold over 20 lakh smartphones in 5 days of the festive sale across channels.

In the premium segment, Xiaomi 11 Lite NE 5G, and Mi 11X Series received maximum demand, followed by Redmi Note 10S and Redmi Note 10 Pro, and Redmi 9 Series in the mid value segment.

“Continuing the brand’s legacy, ‘Diwali With Mi’ brought attractive discounts and offers across Mi.com, the Great Indian Shopping Festival on Amazon, and The Big Billion Days on Flipkart and offline channels. On the back of a strong product portfolio, the company recorded a 10X growth in the premium segment ( >20K ) vis-a-vis last year,” the company said in a statement.

Xiaomi India is offering deals on range of products across categories such as Mi 11 X, Mi 10i, Redmi Note 10 Series, Redmi 9 Series, among others, coupled with bank offers for consumers.

Earlier, the brand announced that it sold 1 lakh Smart TVs in less than 3 days of the festive sale across platforms. On the back of a strong product portfolio, the company recorded a massive 53x jump in demand for 4k TVs.

During the first wave of Diwali sales, 8 out of the top 10 best-selling Smart TVs listed on Amazon were from the house of Mi and Redmi. Redmi Smart TV X 50″, Mi TV 4A 32″, Mi TV 5X 43″ witnessed maximum demand from consumers.

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Portable wireless speakers can be a great audio companion for people on the go. A case in point is the Realme Cobble Bluetooth Speaker. It is a tiny wireless speaker with a water-resistant construction for carefree use even at the poolside, beaches or cafeteria with food and drink items spread across the table – basically the places where you would hesitate to use any of your electronics. Moreover, the speaker has a built-in microphone. So, you can use it to extend the audio set-up of any Bluetooth-enabled device for loud and clear voice calls. Priced at Rs 1,799, there is more to the Realme Cobble Bluetooth Speaker than meets the eye.

Starting with design, the Realme Cobble Bluetooth Speaker has a petite pebble shaped body not bigger than the size of an average palm. The speaker’s small form factor and lightweight build (200g) aid portability. The top side of the speaker has a fabric mesh covering with a single dynamic audio driver and a passive bass radiator hidden underneath. The edges and the bottom side of the speaker have a plastic build with a rubber finish. These allow it to sit firmly even on uneven surfaces. It is not necessary to place the speaker on an object, you can even hang it using a lanyard that comes as a standard accessory along with the speaker and its charging cable. Speaking of charging, the speaker has a USB-C port with a tight lid covered for protection against water ingression. The speaker is IPX5-rated for water resistance – that is not robust but good enough to handle minor water splashes.

As for performance, the speaker’s 5W dynamic audio driver has a fuller audio output – thanks to its passive bass radiator, which boosts low-end frequencies. There are no fancy features here like Sony’s Live feature that widens the acoustics for a live concert-like experience. Even the audio codes are limited to SBC and AAC. However, for a portable speaker on budget, the Realme Cobble Bluetooth Speaker’s audio performance is quite good. Rounding off the speaker’s utility is its built-in microphone, which makes it a good external audio device for voice calls and video conferencing. The microphone is sensitive and picks up voice even from a distance. It is, however, not best suited for use in an environment with loud ambient noise.

The performance is complemented by the on-battery time. On a single charge, the speaker works for about seven hours when used for calls and music. While the on-battery time is decent, charging time could have been better – it takes about two hours for the battery to charge fully from zero.

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Senior Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has sought to end the controversy surrounding his on-field showdown with England skipper Eoin Morgan over an extra run during an IPL match, saying it was not a personal battle but a difference of opinion on how the game should be played.

During last week’s IPL match between Delhi Capitals and Kolkata Knight Riders, which is captained by Morgan, Ashwin tried to take a run after a throw ricocheted off his batting partner Rishabh Pant’s body.

Morgan and Ashwin then had an altercation with the England white-ball skipper calling the Indian a “disgrace” and accusing him of not adhering to the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ despite the fact that MCC rules allow scoring of runs after rebound from a batsman’s body.

England had benefitted from such a rebound not so long ago when they were awarded four runs after a throw from the deep struck Ben Stokes’ bat during the 2019 World Cup final, and the umpire signalled overthrows, leading to their title triumph.

“Look, I think it’s definitely not a personal battle or one on one battle and I wouldn’t deem it like that at all. People who want attention may be taking it that way, but I am not looking at it that way at all,” Ashwin said after last night’s game against Chennai Super Kings.

“…I was not the one who was aware that it had hit Rishabh (Pant). So I just felt like they had already decided they were going to have a go, and that is one of the reasons why I said the words that were used were not in the right direction and not in the right space,” he explained.

He was referring to his Twitter posts after that game in which he asked Morgan and Tim Southee to not use “derogatory” words and lecture him on ‘Spirit of Cricket’ by taking a moral high ground.

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Apple Inc. set a release date of Oct. 15 for its latest smartwatch, a sign that it’s coping with production challenges that had dogged the new device.

The company plans to begin taking orders for the product — called the Apple Watch Series 7 — this Friday, Oct. 8, starting at 8 a.m. New York time. It will then hit stores a week later, Apple said in a statement on its website.

The Series 7 watch was unveiled on Sept. 14, but Apple left the release date vague at the time, saying it would be “later this fall.” The device has a bigger display, marking the first time the company has enlarged the watch’s screen since the Series 4 three years ago.

Apple customers and investors were bracing for delays since August, when people familiar with the matter said the watch was suffering production snags. An Oct. 15 release would come three weeks after the rollout of Apple’s flagship iPhone device, which was announced at the same time.

The Series 7 comes in 41 millimeter and 45 millimeter sizes, and the company is touting it as the most durable Apple Watch ever. The price will start at $399 in the U.S.

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Facebook has apologised for an outage that lasted almost ten hours, blaming a configuration change to routers for causing its apps to crashing.

“Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication. This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt,” said Santosh Janardhan, Vice President Infrastructure at Facebook, in a blog post.

All of Facebook’s services, including WhatsApp and Instagram, were down for users globally beginning Monday night. The outage affected Facebook’s internal systems as well and slowed down efforts to bring up systems back again.

ALSO READ: Zuckerberg loses $7 bn in hours as Facebook crash takes down firm’s stock

“We’ve been working as hard as we can to restore access, and our systems are now back up and running. The underlying cause of this outage also impacted many of the internal tools and systems we use in our day-to-day operations, complicating our attempts to quickly diagnose and resolve the problem,” Janardhan said in the post.

Will Cathcart, the WhatsApp global head, tweeted Tuesday morning: “ We take our mission seriously, and I’m grateful to everyone who worked hard to bring our service back with the reliability you expect from @WhatsApp. We’ll learn and grow from this, and continue working to provide you with a simple, secure, and reliable private messaging app.”

Twitter and Reddit were abuzz through Monday night, with their users speculating at reasons that may have caused Facebook’s services to be down.

Users reported seeing a DNS issue that seemed to have taken Facebook’s domain from the Internet.

The Domain Name System (DNS) helps organise the Internet with the allotment of domains like “.com,” “.net,” and so on.

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Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) on Monday said its SUV Thar has crossed 75,000 cumulative bookings mark in one year of its launch in the country.

The all-new Thar continued its relentless march to automotive folklore and clocked 75,000 bookings just a year after its launch on Mahindra Group’s 75th Anniversary on October 2, 2020, the automaker said in a statement.

It has breached the traditional boundaries set by off-roaders and invaded into the dreams of metro-based young, urban buyers who are looking for an authentic yet sophisticated SUV experience, it added.

The company noted that 40 per cent of the bookings of the model have come from millennials.

“Another interesting fact is that almost 50 per cent of the bookings are for the automatic variant and 25 per cent of the total bookings are for the petrol variant,” it added.

The new Thar comes with both petrol and diesel powertrains mated with manual and automatic transmissions.

The last generation of the model used to come with diesel engine and manual transmission only.

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German luxury carmaker Audi is seeking to accelerate its sales growth in India with the launch of its all-new Q5 SUV, one of its volume drivers next month, according to a senior company official.

The company will open bookings of the upcoming Q5 in the next couple of weeks. It had suspended sales of its popular SUVs Q3, Q5 and the Q7 last year when India moved to BS-VI emission norms with the company also deciding to stop offering diesel engine options in the country.

“We plan to launch the locally produced Q5 in the month of November. We’ve been waiting for this for a long time. So far we are doing extremely well in spite of the fact that some of our volume models like Q range are not there in full strength,” Audi India Head Balbir Singh Dhillon told PTI.

With this Q5 launch next month, he added, “We are now looking forward towards the next phase of our growth and I’m pretty confident that will also come sooner than later. The Q5 is one of our most successful models from the time that we have been in India.”

Audi India, which shares its annual sales numbers only, had sold 1,639 units in 2020. However, in terms of growth in the first eight months of 2021 it has already witnessed 115 per cent increase in sales.

“On the volume side, we already have three digit growth for this year and I am expecting that with the Q5 and other models later, it will only go up,” Dhillon said.

On the absence of its popular high volume models such as Q3, Q5 and Q7 SUVs from the Indian market, Dhillon said when the emission norms in India moved last year from BS-IV to BS-VI the company had also decided that to go from “petrol plus diesel strategy to petrol and electrification”.

The coronavirus pandemic had also delayed the homologation of the new vehicles for compliance of Indian regulations.

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Tata Motors on Monday expanded its product range in the country with the unveiling of its sub-compact SUV Punch.

The company plans to launch the model on October 20, and has commenced bookings on its website and sales network across the country for Rs 21,000.

The Punch, which would sit below Nexon in the company’s product line up, comes with a 1.2 litre petrol engine mated to both manual and automatic transmissions.

The model comes with SUV attributes like tall seating, high ground clearance, 370 mm water wading capability and traction feature to aid recovery in off road situations.

“As we have seen over the last few years, SUVs today have gone beyond just mere size and it is more about attitude and expression. People have been looking for a smaller SUV or a sub-compact SUV which is relatively a wide space. Punch has been designed keeping in mind the customer requirements,” Tata Motors PVBU Vice-President (Sales, Marketing & Customer Care) Rajan Amba told PTI.

Customers are these days seeking a complete package that comes enhanced with stylish looks, spacious interiors, high ground clearance, superlative drive experience, connected features and class-leading safety, he added.

“Keeping these in mind, we wanted to create a one-of-its-kind product that embodies the true spirit of Tata SUVs, while also being versatile, rugged and youthful in nature… With several industry and segment-first features, we are convinced that the Punch will match the high expectations of the discerning Indian car-buyers,” Amba noted.

The model overlaps various segments and therefore it would appeal to a diverse set of customers, he added.

Tata Motors Design Studios in India, UK, and Italy have collaborated to develop the vehicle to herald the creation of an entirely new category – the sub-compact SUV, to address a growing customer need for a small in size but large in space SUV.

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