Puma operates 365 owned stores in India, and over the past three years, has signed up cricketer Virat Kohli, boxer Mary Kom, footballer Sunil Chhetri and actress Sarah Ali Khan to endorse its products.

According to the company, Puma's collaboration with the Indian cricket captain saw a massive rise in sales in FY2019 with sales through One8 accounting for almost 10 per cent of its overall sales, and cementing the leadership position by a wider margin.

China accounted for 20% of Adidas sales in 2018. It sells its products from about 12,000 stores in China, most franchises plus fewer than 500 of its own stores. Almost a fifth of its shoes and apparel are produced in the country.

With this campaign, the brand aims to highlight the inspirational stories of real women, influencers and athletes from different age groups and fields through the medium of a film, said the company.

Adidas said 60% of its business was currently at a standstill, with more than 70% of its stores closed worldwide and all big sporting events - including the Tokyo Olympics and Euro soccer tournament - postponed or cancelled.

Puma said it expected all markets to recover by the end of the year and for growth to return in 2021, noting that the crisis has made many people do more sports than before and has strengthened the trend towards more casual dressing.

No large-cap company in the FMCG/ retail space is offering growth visibility as high as Titan.

​​The Bluetooth-enabled smart sunglasses by Titan’s eyewear division will allow users to listen to music with 8-hour playtime. An in-built mic will give access to Siri and Google assistant and allow hands-free calling.

“We have bagged a multi-million dollar order from the Ministry of Defence to make rucksacks for the Indian army. It is an unchartered territory but creating an ideal rucksack for an Indian jawaan who spends maximum time outdoors in challenging terrain will be good learning. The order will be executed next year,” said Siddharth Sood, cofounder of Wildcraft India.

While early movers like Rolex, Omega and Tag Heuer entered India in early noughties, a clutch of global luxury watches like Panerai are now placing bets on the Indian market, keeping in mind a longer investment horizon. In a bid to create a deeper connect with the Indian consumers, Panerai launched two MS Dhoni special edition watches on Wednesday.

Total expenses for fiscal year 2019 came in at Rs 514.52 crore, up about 20% compared to the year-ago period when expenses were at Rs 429 crore.

The growth of healthy lifestyle has added impetus to the athleisure trend.

The revenue growth was led by the jewellery segment, while growth in other segments were muted during the quarter.

“We certainly expect FY21 to better than FY20, because we are going to work smarter and harder on many things that we need to do. But at the same time, we are prepared for a situation which is going to be very-very tough.”

Jewellery remains the main business of the company, generating most of its operating profit (EBIT). It added 34 jewellery stores in the first nine months and plans to add another 16 by the end of the fiscal taking the total store count to 337.

The watchmaker will form a development centre in Hyderabad with HUG in hardware, firmware, software and cloud technology and has appointed the company's founder Raj Neravati to head technology for wearables at Titan Company.

According to the company, each piece will have features such as front quick-access pockets, anti-theft zippers, mesh back padding and multiple spacious compartments found throughout the collection.

“Titan phased out its older models and launched Fastrack’s Reflex 2.0 in the 2018Q3. It helped the brand to get a healthy 70% sequential growth in its overall shipments in the overall wearable segment,” IDC said.

Exports to Hong Kong, the sector's biggest market, plummeted 41.3 percent, while exports to France fell 48 percent, and those to South Korea were down 46.2 percent.

The MIT Press, ISBN-13: 978-0262039802, English, 464 pages, 2019, USA

Nam June Paik is back in the limelight, thanks to an important historical exhibition at Tate Modern (see the report in this issue). There has →

INTRO – The typical view of the path to musical success sends the enterprising young musician into one of our country’s media centers… New York or L.A. For the members of Asheville’s The Broadcast, they’re taking a road less traveled in an effort to establish a musical career. George Olsen spoke with the band’s lead singer Caitlin Krisko and has this. I’ve long jokingly said that I’m still deciding what it is I want to be when I grow up. At 50+, the joke is getting old… as am I, for that matter. Still, there’s some truth behind the joke, which may be why I’ve always had a deep respect for anyone who determines what it is they want to be and pursue it doggedly with no doubt, no regrets. Among those now with my deep respect… Caitlin Krisko and her band mates in the band The Broadcast. “And being in NYC we realized financially speaking we couldn’t afford to do that. We couldn’t afford to pay our rent and be on the road 150 days a year without spraining our back trying to get people to

INTRO – If you like your country or acoustic music slick and highly produced, don’t buy the following CD by Raleigh’s Lynda Dawson and Greenville’s Pattie Hopkins. One guitar, one fiddle, two voices … that’s it … and the CD’s title tells you everything you need to know about the music inside. George Olsen talked with Lynda & Pattie and has this. When I receive music in the mail the first thing I might notice is the CDs title. In the case of Lynda Dawson & Pattie Hopkins CD “Traditional Duets” the first thing that popped into my head was “they certainly didn’t expend a lot of energy naming this disc.” After listening to the disc my review changed to “great music, boring name.” Boring or not, Lynda & Pattie somehow stumbled upon a perfectly descriptive title for their CD that somehow after centuries of traditional music is absolutely unique. (PH) “Traditional Duets was actually a place holder with our graphic design artist and toward the end of the project we fell in love

US phone-maker said to have leased 25k sq ft space at Maker Maxity mall in the Mumbai hub.

"We will be closing all of our retail stores outside of Greater China until March 27," Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in a letter posted on the company's website.

The decision was taken in the 39th GST Council meeting chaired by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The move was made to correct the inverted duty structure. ​

The authority said it found that Apple acted to prevent independent retailers in France from competing on price and abused its economic power over them.

The industry body represents 1.50 lakh mobile retailers who may be unable to pay their monthly instalments and interest towards credit cards, vehicle loan, home loan and business loans taken by them. A similar letter highlighting the concerns of the mobile retailers was also sent to non-banking finance companies (NBFCs).

Industry bodies Manufacturers’ Association of Information Technology (MAIT) and India Cellular & Electronics Association (ICEA) have written to the government seeking concessions in the delivery of smartphones among other electronics devices and removal of restrictions on the movement of components for inland and export purposes.

“We would appreciate it if the Finance Ministry could approach the RBI or the respective authorities to direct NBFCs and Banks to waive off DBD (dealer by down) and MDR (merchant discount rate) charges to retailers on paper finance and on digital transactions for at least 6 months post lockdown,” All India Mobile Retailers Association said in a letter to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

Handset makers and offline traders have urged the commerce and home ministries to allow the sale and service of mobile devices and its accessories through offline stores in the country.

"All standalone (single) shops, neighborhood (colony) shops and shops in residential complexes are permitted to remain open in urban areas, without any distinction of essential and non-essential," the ministry of home affairs said in a notification on Friday.

The high court, based on King's ownership of the intellectual property rights for the Candy Crush game and the evidence of its popularity.

Xbox will be available for Rs39,990, while the model with Kinect, an interface that allows the use of gestures to play games, will cost Rs45,990.

There's no better game to play with friends than "Super Smash Bros." And it's about to get even better.

King Digital Entertainment Plc, owner of Candy Crush, has signed an exclusive licensing deal with Mumbai-based Dream Theatre, to license and sell Candy Crush branded products across South Asia.

Rovio’s India head also said that the company wants to have its own retail store where it can sell Angry Birds merchandise such as shirts and stuffed toys.

Reliance Entertainment, an arm of the Anil Ambani-headed Reliance Group, on Thursday named Amit Khanduja as the new CEO of Reliance Games, effective June 1.

Toonz Animation, the flagship division of leading content company Toonz Entertainment, has signed a major deal with Gummybear International Inc.

The game, which has been launched in India and the US, is available for Rs 6,249 on its portal and Amazon.in.

MadRat has developed an interactive suit designed to encourage children to venture out and play even within the restrictive confines of housing complexes.

ACK has roped in game developer Nazara Games to develop mobile games based on ACK and Tinkle characters, and the games would be launched in the next six months, said Mohan.

The new launch includes five notebooks and a desktop powered with sharp designs and graphics.

Beth McKee 's Next to Nowhere CD was our 2nd most played release in 2012. You can download one of our featured tracks "On the Verge" here.

Free download of Can't Trust the News from Enter the Haggis ' new CD "The Modest Revolution", currently featured on The Sound.

Currently featured on The Sound , download for free Every Day from Caitlin Canty 's new CD "Golden Hour."

The new CD by Anders Osborne "Peace" is currently featured on The Sound. From that CD, enjoy a free download of 47 .

Not one... but TWO... free downloads from Rob Drabkin's latest CD "Little Steps." Enjoy tracks currently featured on The Sound Down to Fate as well as the CD's title track.

Free download of The One That Got Away from Ken Yates ' new CD "23", currently featured on The Sound. Visit Ken's website here .