Category: Technology

New Delhi, Feb 27 : GI Group Holding’s latest report, The Rise of Aspirational India: India’s Consumer Durables Sector Evolution, Innovation, and the Road Ahead, reveals how India’s Fast Moving Consumer Durables (FMCD) market is undergoing a fundamental shift—from necessity-led buying to aspiration-driven, smart lifestyle upgrades.

Driven by rising incomes, rapid technology adoption, and easy access to financing, consumer behaviour is evolving across demographics. The report offers actionable insights for brands, retailers, and policymakers to tap into a market projected to grow at an 11% CAGR, reaching INR 3 lakh crore by 2029. It highlights the emergence of a dual consumer mindset—one that balances value-for-money pragmatism with a growing appetite for premium, feature-rich products within smaller, smarter, and more selective households.

The findings show a clear change in purchase priorities. Indian consumers are increasingly valuing performance over price, with product features (68%) ranking as the top decision driver, followed by reviews (61%), price (59%), and warranty (55%). While 73% of buyers continue to opt for value-for-money choices, nearly 70% are willing to invest in mid-tier or premium products when performance justifies the spend—underscoring the coexistence of aspiration and practicality in a dual price-point market.

A defining trend highlighted in the report is the rise of a younger, upgrade-oriented consumer. Young professionals account for 37% of FMCD sales and nearly 45% of financed purchases, reflecting how access to credit is expanding demand for advanced and premium durables. Financing plays a pivotal role among younger cohorts, with 74% of Gen Z consumers using EMIs or Buy Now, Pay Later options—signalling a structural shift in how durables are researched, selected, and funded.

Brand loyalty is also becoming increasingly fluid as replacement cycles shorten. The report notes that 46% of consumers replace durables every two to three years, while 63% often switch brands during upgrades. As a result, buying experience, post-purchase support, and service reliability are emerging as critical differentiators in a market where upgrade intent remains consistently high.

Commenting on the findings, Sonal Arora, Country Manager, GI Group Holding, said: 

“This paper explores the subtleties of the FMCD landscape in light of India’s rising consumer ambitions, providing crucial insights for business leaders, brands, and legislators. From FMCD 3.0’s connected smart homes and credit-driven access to transient brand loyalty, short replacement cycles, and the gap between pragmatic and premium customers, it highlights disruptive patterns expected to change consumer durables. These findings highlight the necessity of personnel training, immersive retail experiences, excellent post-purchase assistance, and further expansion through PLI programs. Businesses that adjust to these shifts can create flexible, creative, and customer-focused strategies to satisfy the needs of India’s growing middle class.”

The findings make it clear: the future of FMCD isn’t one-size-fits-all. Brands that embrace smart ecosystems, finance partnerships, experiential selling, and multigenerational needs from Gen Z’s digital-first buys to Conventionalists’ reliability focus will be best positioned to lead in an evolving consumer landscape. By celebrating diversity in preferences, city profiles, and lifestyle upgrades, organizations can unlock the full potential of India’s aspirational boom and thrive in the years to come.

Stockholm, Sweden, Feb 26 – Sinch (publ) today announced agentic conversations, a new set of capabilities designed to operationalize AI agents across global communication channels, enabling enterprises to deploy intelligent agents across messaging, voice, and email at scale.

As generative AI and conversational channels like voice, RCS and messaging apps become central to customer engagement, enterprises are shifting toward agent-driven models. To scale, AI agents must do more than converse. They need secure integration with enterprise systems to execute actions across channels.

With agentic conversations, Sinch simplifies this transition by providing a flexible, secure and open platform that enables businesses to operationalize AI agents at their own pace and according to their technical maturity. Customers are not locked into a single agent model, proprietary data layer, or closed ecosystem. Whether they choose to build their own solutions, use Sinch’s AI capabilities, bring their own agents, or integrate through Sinch’s ecosystem of partners, Sinch provides the infrastructure and orchestration required to support deployment at scale, built on Sinch’s global messaging, voice, and email APIs.

“Our philosophy is simple: enterprises should be free to build with us or bring their own AI,” said Daniel Morris, Chief Product Officer at Sinch. “We do not believe in locking customers into a single agent model, proprietary data layer, or closed ecosystem. Whether businesses use Sinch’s AI capabilities, deploy their own agents, or work with trusted partners, we provide the communications and orchestration infrastructure that makes those agents operational across messaging, email, and voice.”

Agentic conversations is a suite of capabilities, including Sinch Agent Builder, developer and agent tools such as Sinch Functions and Sinch Skills, as well as a broad set of integrations, designed to help enterprises build, deploy and manage AI agents across channels. The transition toward agent-driven engagement is expected to drive substantial growth in conversational traffic across messaging, voice and email. Managing this increase in volume, while maintaining trust, reliability and compliance, will require infrastructure purpose-built for scale.

“Unlike standalone AI agent frameworks, Sinch provides the trusted communications layer that agents depend on to operate reliably across channels and markets. Sinch has long experience in carrier-grade routing, global number provisioning, regulatory compliance, identity verification, branded calling, deliverability optimization and fraud protection. That experience ensures agent-driven communications are secure, scalable, and ready for real-world deployment.” Daniel Morris said.

As AI agents take on a more active role in customer engagement, enterprises are redefining how they manage trust, relevance, and conversational scale across channels. The next phase of customer communications will be shaped not only by smarter AI, but by the infrastructure that provides agents with the context, data access and intelligence needed to operate securely, reliably, and at volume. With agentic conversations, Sinch positions itself at the center of that shift.

Tokyo, Japan, Feb 26 – Toray Industries, Inc., announced that it has developed a proprietary technology to produce bio-based 2-pyrrolidone, a raw material in its polyamide 4, which delivers excellent biodegradability (see note 1) in marine and other environments and helps address microplastic issues. The company will use this technology to verify the scale-up of bio-based polyamide 4, with a view to offering it by the fiscal year ending March 2029, mainly for microparticles in foundation, eyeshadow, and other cosmetics.

 

In recent years, ocean discharges of microplastics (note 2) from cosmetics and facial cleansers have become a key environmental issue, prompting various countries (note 3) to restrict their use. Toray set about developing and launching polyamide 4 in response to this situation.

The conventional feedstock for 2-pyrrolidone, the raw material in polyamide 4, is petroleum-based. Toray embarked on R&D into synthesis approaches with sugars and other biomass sources, resulting in its bio-based version. The sizes and shapes of polyamide 4 microparticles from polymerizing and processing 2-pyrrolidone with this technique are comparable to those of conventional offerings. This bio-based feedstock conversion does not affect end products.

 It is also worth noting that reactions are milder than those of regular petrochemical processes. Toray’s breakthrough should help lower carbon dioxide emissions across the value chain, from raw materials through polyamide 4 microparticle production.

The applications of 2-pyrrolidone made with Toray’s technology extend well beyond polyamide 4. It is also a feedstock for N-methylpyrrolidone, used extensively in manufacturing semiconductor materials and engineering plastics (note 4), and for N- vinylpyrrolidone (note 6), a monomer for high-performance polymers in pharmaceuticals and other applications. This opens the door to bio-based production across diverse materials supporting next-generation industries.

Toray is pushing ahead with initiatives to transition to a circular economy and conserve natural resources as part of its sustainability efforts. The company will accordingly keep pursuing R&D in keeping with its commitment to delivering new value and contributing to social progress.

 Results from the Ministry of Environment-funded Projects to Promote the Construction of Decarbonized Circular Economy Systems (FY2023 and FY2024) contributed to Toray’s technological breakthrough.

Notes

1.  With biodegradation, bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms break down organic compounds into simpler inorganic substances, including water and carbon dioxide. Biodegradation is generally slower in the sea, where microorganisms are less abundant than in the soil.

2.  Microplastic particles are smaller than 5 mm. They include primary microplastic microbeads in products like facial cleansers and secondary microplastic fragments from the degradation and fragmentation of items like plastic bottles and shopping bags owing to ultraviolet radiation and waves. There are concerns about the adverse effects of microplastics on ecosystems and human health across the food chain.

3.  Strengthening of Microplastic Regulations Worldwide

Europe amended its Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals regulation in 2023 to prohibit the use of cosmetics and other products intentionally incorporating microplastics after a transition of six to 12 years. The regulation exempts plastics meeting specific biodegradability test standards. Toray’s polyamide 4 microparticles meet the OECD 301F ready biodegradability standard and are thus not subject to this regulation.

4.  Engineering plastics offer high mechanical strength and heat resistance. Their light weight and high performance make them common substitutes for metals, including in automotive parts.

5.  N-methylpyrrolidone is a liquid compound in which a methyl group replaces the hydrogen on the nitrogen atom of 2-pyrrolidone. It has a high boiling point, excellent chemical stability, and strong solvency for diverse compounds, and is a common cleaning agent, paint stripper, and solvent.

6.  N-vinylpyrrolidone is a liquid compound in which a vinyl group replaces the hydrogen on the nitrogen atom of 2-pyrrolidone. Polymerization from the vinyl group yields polyvinylpyrrolidone. It serves as a thickener in cosmetics, a binder in pharmaceutical tablets, and a clarifying agent in alcoholic beverages.

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Feb 26 – Codio, the cloud-based teaching platform built to scale computer science and technical skills education, today announced it has been selected by GitHub as the exclusive commercial partner extending the options available to GitHub Education users to use cutting-edge CS-specific learning tech for course management and the hands-on student experience. Codio has supported major universities and tech companies globally at scale, delivering evidence-based tools designed to support and streamline instructor workflows, enhance the student learning experience, and integrate AI responsibly into teaching and learning.

Under this partnership, more than 3,000 instructors and 500,000 students who currently use GitHub Classroom will be eligible to transition their assignments and courses to Codio’s proven, enterprise-grade learning platform while retaining their GitHub-native workflows, including course materials, assignments, and grading scripts stored in Git repositories. Codio’s platform offers a robust environment for instruction and assessment, trusted for reliability at scale by hundreds of CS teaching institutions, with greater compute flexibility and modern AI tools, designed to help scale high-quality computing and tech skills programs.

“This partnership reflects our shared vision with GitHub to keep the computing and tech skills learning experience at the forefront of advances in edtech and learning experience design, while embracing the use of AI to enhance the learner experience,” said Doug Hughes, CEO of Codio. “We’re working closely with the GitHub Education team to give instructors an easy, disruption-free path to use Codio while retaining the workflows they rely on, and in doing so gain access to tooling, support, and learner experiences at the forefront of modern computing education.”

GitHub Classroom users will also gain access to Codio’s AI teaching assistant, Coach, which provides immediate feedback to help students with common challenges, such as programming error messages, without giving away answers. This approach has been shown to improve assignment completion rates, lower DWF rates, and raise median grade performance by 15%, while reducing the manual grading load. Codio’s platform also delivers advanced autograding, LLM rubric-based evaluation, and learner behavior insights across entire programs, features that make it possible to scale high-quality instruction to thousands of learners.

In partnering with GitHub, Codio is launching a dedicated onboarding program that includes migration tools, live sessions, and two flavors of free access, giving users the option to continue to use GitHub Codespaces or migrate fully to the Codio platform. Beyond the free tiers, institutions can enjoy preferential pricing with enhanced support options for the largest-scale users.

LONDON, UK – Feb 26: IR Power, a Scottish energy tech firm owned by MWNW Group, introduces its cutting-edge solution to the vast industrial energy waste experienced when factory machines slow down – helping manufacturers to achieve extensive energy savings using a rental model where manufacturers pay nothing upfront and only pay from proven savings.

In modern factories, many large machines constantly speed up and slow down as part of normal operation; automotive presses lifting and lowering, conveyor systems starting and stopping, industrial mixers ramping up and down. Every time these machines decelerate, they generate electricity that’s currently wasted.

IR Power’s plug-and-play systems work like regenerative braking in electric cars, but for industrial equipment. They capture this energy (that would otherwise be burned off as heat) and feed it back into factory power grids for immediate reuse. On large automotive press lines typically consisting of machine clusters cycling every six seconds, this recaptures 10-20% of total electricity consumption – representing up to £50,000-100,000 in annual savings per machine cluster at current UK energy prices.

The problem: Proven technology, broken business model

While energy recovery technology has existed for years, previous solutions required expensive custom engineering that typically demanded weeks or months of install and interrupted operations, high upfront costs, and longer integration cycles – particularly where drive systems had to be modified or replaced. At historical electricity prices of £50/MWh, the complexity wasn’t justified. At today’s prices of £100-150/MWh – combined with binding net-zero commitments – the economics have fundamentally changed.

The solution: Redesigned technology and commercial model

IR Power has eliminated the adoption barriers that prevented previous solutions from scaling:

Standardised sizing – Three standard product sizes work across different applications, replacing expensive custom engineering that previously cost £30-40k or more.

Plug-and-play installation – Systems connect to existing equipment in hours. No modifications to machines, no changes to operations, and no production downtime.

Rental model – Customers pay nothing upfront. Monthly fees are based only on measured energy savings. If the system doesn’t save energy, customers don’t pay.

Equipment agnostic – Unlike solutions locked to one manufacturer’s drives or motors, IR Power’s systems integrate with any supplier. Factories can connect multiple machines into a single energy recovery network, optimising across the entire site.

Fail-safe design – When braking energy exceeds system capacity, excess safely routes to existing waste resistors while the system continues operating. Competitor systems often shut down completely when overloaded, requiring manual restarts.

Why now: Energy prices and net-zero create perfect storm

With industrial electricity prices doubling and manufacturers facing binding net-zero commitments, energy efficiency has shifted from ‘nice-to-have’ to business-critical. IR Power’s technology addresses both imperatives simultaneously: cutting costs and carbon.

Industrial machines have 20–30-year lifespans and even upgrading drive systems can cost £1m or more, making retrofit the viable route for capturing immediate savings. The rental model, typically approved as operating expense rather than capital, removes approval barriers and aligns incentives perfectly – IR Power only succeeds when customers save money.

Richard Bradshaw, Founder and Managing Director of IR Power, said:

“For years, energy recovery systems existed but didn’t deploy at scale because they cost too much and put all the risk on customers. We’ve inverted that model completely. Our customers pay zero upfront – no capital expenditure, just operating expense. Installation takes hours with no production downtime. And here’s the key: if our system doesn’t save them money, we don’t get paid; we take all the performance risk. The equipment lasts 15-20 years, so customers get over a decade of pure savings. The technology works – it always has. Our job was removing every barrier that prevented adoption: the cost, the complexity, the risk, and the disruption.”

Commercial deployment

IR Power is beginning commercial deployments in 2026, prioritising press applications including tier-one automotive and construction materials manufacturing. The company deliberately chose diverse sectors to prove the technology across different operating conditions before accelerating deployment.

The addressable market includes thousands of suitable machines across automotive, construction materials, food processing, and other sectors in the UK alone, with global expansion planned once the model is proven. Target applications include motor-driven machinery with frequent start/stop or speed-change cycles where braking energy is highest and most consistent.

Prospective customers can currently request a complimentary, no-obligation site assessment by contacting the IR Power team at info@i-r-power.com.

Los Altos, CA, Feb 26: As events become more global and multilingual, organizers are under increasing pressure to deliver seamless, inclusive experiences without adding operational complexity. Wordly, the pioneer and leader in live AI translation and captioning, on February 25 announced new mobile-first enhancements to the Wordly Translation App designed specifically for conference, tradeshow, and events.

The latest updates include background audio and screen-lock functionality, allowing attendees to listen to live translations while multitasking and conserving battery life, along with instant language search for faster onboarding. Speakers also benefit from push-to-talk and automatic language detection, enabling seamless, two-way multilingual communication in dynamic sessions, all at no additional cost to existing customers.

“Event professionals are rethinking accessibility as a core part of the attendee experience,” said Lakshman Rathnam, Founder and CEO of Wordly. “These mobile enhancements give organizers a scalable way to provide inclusive, multilingual access without additional hardware, staffing, or logistical burden.”

Designed for the Realities of Live Events

The updated Wordly Translation App introduces several features tailored to how attendees and speakers engage during events, including:

•  Background Audio for Multitasking: Attendees can now continue listening to translated audio while switching between apps on their mobile device. Whether checking the event app, reviewing presentation materials, or responding to messages, participants remain connected to the session without interruption.
•  Screen-Lock Battery Optimization: With extended conference days in mind, the app now allows translated audio to continue playing while a device screen is locked. This feature helps conserve battery life, critical for multi-session agendas and large-scale conventions.
•  Instant Language Search: A newly added search function enables users to quickly locate their preferred language from dozens of options, reducing onboarding friction and minimizing the need for onsite support.

New Capabilities for Speakers and Session Leaders

In addition to enhancing the attendee experience, Wordly has expanded functionality for presenters and facilitators, including:

•  Push-to-Talk Functionality: Speakers can now use push-to-talk directly within the app, allowing for two-way communication in multilingual settings. The feature is particularly well-suited for breakout discussions, workshops, hosted buyer meetings, and small-group sessions, where interactive dialogue is essential.
•  Automatic Language Detection and Switching: For sessions where presenters shift between languages, the app automatically recognizes language changes and adjusts translations accordingly to ensure a smooth experience for diverse audiences without manual resets.

Scalable Language Access Without Headsets or Booths

Unlike traditional interpretation models that require physical equipment, interpreters onsite, or dedicated booths, the Wordly mobile app operates on attendees’ own iOS or Android devices. Participants simply enter a Session ID provided by the organizer and select their language, no account creation is required. For speakers, access to advanced features such as push-to-talk is granted through a secure passcode.

Meeting Industry Demand for Inclusive Design

With international attendance rebounding and hybrid formats remaining standard, language accessibility has become a strategic priority for event organizers, associations, and corporate planners. Wordly’s mobile enhancements support:

•  Global events and tradeshows seeking to broaden international participation
•  Corporate events connecting distributed teams
•  Association meetings aiming to increase member engagement
• Education and campus events serving multilingual communities
• Government and civic gatherings prioritizing public access

By eliminating hardware requirements and simplifying user onboarding, the updated Wordly Translation App enables planners to scale multilingual access across general sessions, breakouts, and ancillary meetings with minimal operational lift.

Prism™ ISP–Powered Dual Camera Module Delivers Enhanced Performance and Faster Integration for OEMs

 

 

BARCELONA and GOLETA, Calif.,– Teledyne FLIR OEM, a part of Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (NYSE: TDY), today announced the launch of the Lepton® XDS, a compact dual‑thermal‑and‑visible camera module bringing Teledyne FLIR’s patented MSX® (Multi‑Spectral Dynamic Imaging) technology to a new class of space‑ and power‑constrained Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) products. Designed for rapid integration, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) -free Lepton XDS reduces development risk and accelerates time‑to‑market for embedded, mobile, and industrial applications.

The Lepton XDS pairs a 160 × 120 radiometric Lepton 3.5 micro‑thermal camera with a five‑megapixel (MP) visible sensor, featuring MSX that enhances thermal imagery in real time by embossing visible‑image edges directly onto the thermal scene. This patented software delivers sharper detail, improved context, and a level of actionable thermal intelligence typically associated with more-expensive, higher-resolution camera systems. It is ideal for fire detection and prevention, EV battery monitoring, robotics navigation, unmanned platforms, smart infrastructure, and health and safety systems.

“MSX technology has long been a defining advantage of Teledyne FLIR, and with Lepton XDS, we are making that capability accessible in a compact, OEM‑ready module,” said Mike Walters, vice president of product management, Teledyne FLIR OEM. “By combining a visible camera, a proven micro‑thermal sensor, onboard Prism ISP processing, and direct access to radiometric overlays including spot meters and regions of interest we’re accelerating innovation and enabling OEMs to deliver clearer thermal imagery for faster user interpretation.”

Prism ISP: Advanced Imaging Beyond MSX

The integrated FLIR Prism ISP software ensures real‑time image enhancement while providing a comprehensive out‑of‑the‑box suite of advanced image‑processing features, including thermal‑visible fusion, advanced image processing, and an industry-first radiometric JPEG (RJPEG) output. Built‑in measurement and visualization tools include regions of interest (ROI), spot temperature measurements, isotherms, and customizable color palettes, and it is seamlessly compatible with the Teledyne FLIR OEM software ecosystem for analysis, post‑processing, and reporting. 

Designed for Scalable OEM Deployment

The Lepton XDS is a size, weight, and power (SWaP)‑optimized module, and an industry‑standard USB output makes it well-suited for battery‑powered and always‑on systems. It is also ITAR‑free and classified under 6a993.b.4.b enabling broadly available for commercial applications worldwide.

As the global leader in thermal camera manufacturing, Teledyne FLIR OEM’s global technical services organization and proven high‑volume manufacturing systems have delivered more than six million Leptons supporting scalable production while minimizing supply‑chain risk.

To see the new Lepton XDS and other exciting products from the Thermal by FLIR collaborative development program, visit booth 7B6 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, 2-5 March 2026. Learn more at www.oem.flir.com/lepton.

 

Bengaluru, Feb 25 : Tattvam AI, a deeptech startup building AI systems to automate semiconductor chip design, today announced it has raised $1.7 million in pre-seed funding led by Seedcamp, with participation from EWOR, Entropy Industrial Ventures, Concept Ventures, semiconductor angel Stan Boland.

The world is racing to build custom silicon. Unlike general-purpose chips designed to handle a wide variety of tasks, custom silicon refers to specialized processors built and optimized for specific workloads – such as AI training or AI inference. These purpose-built chips can deliver up to 100x performance improvements over general-purpose hardware like GPUs for their targeted applications, while often consuming significantly less power.

Companies from tech giants to emerging startups are racing to build custom chips. Google has developed its own Tensor Processing Units optimized for AI workloads, Nvidia has partnered with Groq on specialized AI inference chips, and UK startups Fractile and Olix are building custom processors all in pursuit of more powerful, application-tailored silicon that can handle tomorrow’s computational demands more efficiently.

The stakes are enormous: as AI models grow larger and more complex, and as applications from autonomous vehicles to drug discovery require massive computational power, custom silicon has become a critical competitive advantage.

Yet the process to design a chip still takes years of painstaking manual work and the pool of engineers who can do it remains small. Meanwhile, on the software side, AI is already writing complex code at record speed. Tattvam AI aims to bring this transformation to the semiconductor world enabling more chips, designed faster, customised for the exact application making the applications built on top of them dramatically faster.

Tattvam AI is introducing a novel approach to chip design by building an AI system that deeply understands circuit structure and autonomously solves complex design tasks, reducing chip development cycles.

“Chip design is fundamentally a reasoning problem over an enormous search space, not unlike the kind of reasoning that’s needed to solve hard problems in mathematics. Current AI tools, even the most advanced LLMs, struggle with the deep structural understanding that chip design demands. We’re building a reasoning model that actually understands circuits from first principles – the constraints, the tradeoffs, the interdependencies – the same way a world-class engineer would and doing it in a fraction of the time.” – Bragadeesh Suresh Babu, CEO and Co-founder, Tattvam AI.

By automating key parts of the design process, Tattvam AI aims to make custom silicon accessible to more companies, reduce development costs, and enable rapid iteration on chip designs – bringing what currently takes 2-3 years down to weeks.

Bragadeesh is an alumnus of IIT Madras, consistently ranked as India’s 1 engineering institution and alma mater of notable tech leaders including Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas. He developed an early passion for mathematics through competitive Olympiads before entering the AI and hardware space.

He was an early engineer at UK based brain-monitoring startup CoMind, which recently raised $100 million, and later became one of the earliest engineers at UK-based chip startup Fractile. Turning down an offer to join Google’s TPU team, Bragadeesh chose instead to build Tattvam AI and pursue his vision independently.

“Bragadeesh is one of the most driven, energetic and compelling young founders in today’s chip industry. His conviction that Tattvam AI will dramatically speed-up the complex and iterative process of using EDA tools and models to design chips, cutting timelines from years to weeks, is sure to be embraced by the world’s top teams” says Stan Boland, former founder/CEO at Icera (bought by NVIDIA) and Element 14 (bought by Broadcom).

Bragadeesh founded Tattvam AI with Lannan Jiang, who has been developing chips at a research lab at ETH Zurich. Tattvam AI plans to launch its first product in the coming months as it works with partners to accelerate the development of next-generation chips. 

 

India, Feb 25: As Indian consumers move fluidly between scrolling on social media and shopping in-store or online, retail journeys are becoming increasingly omnichannel. To understand this shift, Meta, in collaboration with the Retailers Association of India (RAI), has unveiled findings from a new whitepaper highlighting how AI, short-form video, creators, and messaging platforms are reshaping Indians discover, evaluate, and purchase products across digital and physical channels.

The report finds that omnichannel shoppers are significantly more valuable, with consumers who shop across channels spending 2.5 times more than single-channel shoppers and up to 73% more when engaging across multiple touchpoints. Blending research insights with real-world case studies, the whitepaper outlines how discovery, conversation, and commerce are converging to make unified retail journeys a core growth model.

Said Meghna Apparao, Director, E-Commerce & Retail (India), Meta,

“I urge retail leaders to focus on three transformative pillars highlighted in this whitepaper. First, harness the power of Reels and Creators to drive authentic engagement and brand storytelling. Second, embrace omnichannel performance marketing to seamlessly connect with consumers across platforms, optimizing reach and impact. Third, leverage WhatsApp as a direct, personalized channel for customer interaction and commerce. Together, these strategies unlock new growth opportunities, foster deeper relationships, and position your brand at the forefront of digital retail innovation in India’s dynamic market.”

Said Hitesh Bhatt, Director – Marketing & Communications, Retailers Association of India (RAI),

“There has been a fundamental shift in retail: consumers no longer move between online and offline; they operate across both at once. Discovery, influence, and purchase now happen through content, creators, conversations, and stores, often in the same journey. For retailers, the challenge is no longer adopting digital tools, but integrating them to drive measurable outcomes. Omnichannel maturity will define competitiveness in Indian retail, and this report outlines what it takes to get there.”

Social Media & Creators – The New Gateway to Retail 

The Indian retail landscape is undergoing a clear shift from a search-based transaction model to a scroll-led discovery ecosystem. Today, 77% of retail brand and product discovery happens on social media, with Meta platforms accounting for 96% of this discovery, underscoring the growing influence of Instagram and Facebook on both online and offline purchases.

Short-form video has emerged as the dominant engagement format, with 97% of consumers watching it daily and 60% of time on Facebook and Instagram spent on video. At the same time, the rise of micro and nano creators is reshaping trust and accelerating purchase decisions, with creator-led campaigns delivering measurable lifts across consideration, intent, and conversion.

Said Manoj Jain, Senior VP & Head, Omni Channel Marketing, Reliance Digital,

“Reliance Digital has embraced a Reels-forward strategy, leveraging it to drive brand awareness and business outcomes on Meta. Central to this is our collaboration with regional creators on Meta, enabling authentic connections that resonate with diverse communities, delivering stronger engagement and measurable impact, making Meta an important pillar in our marketing strategy.”

AI-powered omnichannel is redefining retail growth

Indian consumers are increasingly adopting a “phygital” shopping behaviour, with more than half researching products online before buying in-store and a similar proportion researching in-store before purchasing online. This shift is pushing retailers to move beyond siloed digital and physical channels toward unified commerce models that integrate discovery, conversion, and fulfillment across touchpoints.

Retailers that have adopted integrated omnichannel strategies are reporting tangible business gains. Indian retailers using Meta’s Omnichannel Optimization have seen over fourfold improvements in omnichannel return on ad spend, while integrated data strategies have driven up to 15% revenue growth. Those integrating in-store sales data with Meta advertising measurement are also reporting two to fivefold increases in ROAS and up to ninefold incremental sales growth, underscoring the impact of unified data and AI-driven optimisation in connecting digital marketing to offline revenue.

Said Amit Agarwal, CMO, Croma,

“Meta’s AI-powered solutions have fundamentally elevated our omnichannel approach, enabling us to integrate offline data and activate performance marketing across all touchpoints. This strategic shift empowers us to optimize customer journeys, unlock new growth opportunities, and drive sustained incremental footfall & revenue impact—online and offline—while future-proofing our business in a rapidly evolving retail landscape.”

WhatsApp Is Transforming Commerce into Conversations

Bridging discovery and transaction is the rapid rise of WhatsApp as a commerce channel, with messaging emerging as a powerful engine for discovery, conversion, and customer engagement. 72% of product discovery now happens on WhatsApp, highlighting the platform’s growing role in shaping purchase journeys.

Retailers using Business Messaging and Click-to-WhatsApp campaigns are seeing a 61% average improvement in return on ad spend, a 62% increase in leads generated, and 22% higher order values, reinforcing the role of conversational commerce in driving acquisition and sales.

Creators are further accelerating this shift, with 71% of consumers making a purchase within a couple of days after seeing creator content on Meta technologies, highlighting how discovery on social platforms is increasingly translating into real-world transactions. 

Businesses integrating in-store sales data with Meta advertising are seeing 2x–5x+ ROAS uplift and up to 9x incremental sales growth, demonstrating how AI-driven optimization and unified data can connect digital discovery with real-world commerce outcomes.

Key Stats from the Retail Whitepaper:

• Rise of Omnichannel Consumer Journeys: More than 50% of retail consumers research a product online before buying in-store and over 50% research in-store before buying online, highlighting the seamless consumer journeys between physical and digital touchpoints.
• Omnichannel shoppers are significantly more valuable: Consumers who shop across channels spend 2.5× more than single-channel shoppers, making unified commerce a critical business growth lever for retailers.
• Meta’s Conversions API is unlocking measurable offline impact: Businesses that integrated in-store sales with Meta advertising data via CAPI are able to evaluate the true impact of Meta ads on in-store sales with ROAS uplift ranging from 2x–5x+ and up to 9x incremental sales uplift depending on industry and market.
• Meta’s Omnichannel Optimization is driving higher marketing efficiency: Indian retailers using Omnichannel Optimization have seen 4×+ omnichannel ROAS lift, demonstrating the impact of AI-driven optimisation across online and offline conversions.
• Reels and creators are driving measurable retail performance: Retail brands using Reels and creators are seeing 71% higher brand intent lift and 19% lower acquisition costs, showing that creator-led and short-form video content is now a core performance driver.
• WhatsApp is becoming a key retail discovery and conversion channel: 72% of product discovery happens on WhatsApp, and retailers using Business Messaging and Click-to-WhatsApp are seeing:
• 61% average improvement in ROAS
• 62% average increase in leads generated
• 22% higher order values

Rail brakes support fast roller changes in laminating units

 SAUERESSIG has evolved from being a manufacturer of printing and embossing rollers to becoming a highly innovative machine manufacturer with a diverse product range.

In a large laminating unit by SAUERESSIG Engineering for laminating steel strip on both sides, rubber rollers press a protective PET film onto hot steel strip. Despite cooling, these rubber rollers do wear down and need to be replaced regularly. Four profiled rail brakes by mayr® power transmission ensure that the laminating process, which takes place 24 hours a day, only has to be interrupted briefly to replace the rollers.

SAUERESSIG began manufacturing printing and embossing rollers for the packaging and printing industry around 70 years ago. Today, the company is a highly innovative mechanical engineering company with a diverse portfolio. As a leading full-range supplier of calendering, embossing and rotary processing systems in standard and special designs, the company supplies a wide range of industries.

The machine solutions include both complete production lines and customized systems for embossing, finishing, coating, smoothing, perforating and calibrating sheet materials such as paper, film or metal sheets. The company offers comprehensive expertise from the initial idea to the final customized solution, including planning and designing mechanics, drive and automation technology, pre-assembly and commissioning in the factory, and final approval at the customer’s premises.

SAUERESSIG’s large laminating unit coats both sides of the steel strip with a protective PET film

 One such customized system, no less than six metres long and around four metres wide, coats a steel strip on both sides with a thin protective PET film. Harald Bartsch, Head of Design/Expert Advisor at SAUERESSIG Engineering, describes the machine’s design concept as follows “The complete laminating unit consists of two nearly identical, symmetrically arranged side frames, each with a rubberized laminating roller and a contact cooling roller. For laminating, the steel strip moves vertically between the two laminating rollers through the laminating unit at a conveying speed of up to 250 m/min. The laminating rollers press the film onto the hot steel strip from both sides.”

The steel strip’s high temperatures of up to 260 °C heat up the rubber coating on the laminating rollers. Water-cooled contact rollers dissipate this heat and limit the rubber coating’s temperature to a maximum of 90 °C. Despite the cooling, the rubber linings of the laminating rollers are subject to wear and must be replaced regularly. “As the laminating process should ideally be running continuously all year round and 24/7 without interruption,” explains Harald Bartsch, “the time required to replace the laminating rollers must be kept as short as possible. Therefore, the laminating unit is designed in such a way that the automated roller replacement only takes half an hour.”

The laminating unit consists of two symmetrically arranged side frames. Both side frames are mounted onto profiled rail guides and can be separated axially to replace the worn laminating rollers. While the coating process is in progress, profiled rail brake of the ROBA® guidestop® series by mayr® power transmission hold the two system parts in position backlash-free and with high rigidity. To replace the rollers, these safety brakes are released hydraulically, the two machine halves can be moved apart via rack and pinion gears and the laminating rollers can be replaced.

Profiled rail brake of the ROBA® guidestop® series by mayr® power transmission hold the two system parts of a large laminating unit in position backlash-free and with high rigidity.

 The ROBA® guidestop® profiled rail brake serves as a reliable safety brake and backlash-free clamping unit. It can brake movements safely and quickly and clamps the axes rigidly and backlash-free.

Just like all safety brakes by mayr®power transmission, the profiled rail brakes also work according to the fail-safe principle. This means they are closed in de-energised condition. The ROBA® guidestop® brakes use pre-tensioned cup springs to press the brake shoes against the ‘waist’ of the profiled rail, thus clamping it in place.

The hydraulic brake design used in the SAUERESSIG laminating unit is released using a nominal pressure of 70 bar. This is comparatively low in relation to the very high holding forces. The brake mechanism is dimensioned for relatively large strokes. As a result, the brake can compensate for production tolerances on the profiled rails without losing braking force. The ROBA® guidestop® safety brakes are equipped with two independent brake circuits: This allows for either double holding forces or a redundant design.

The profiled rail brakes are therefore directly mounted onto the masses which are to be braked or held. This minimises the risk of hazards, particularly with gravity-loaded axles, as drive elements between the motor and the moving mass, such as spindles, spindle nuts, shaft couplings and gears, do not affect safety. This is different for concepts with motor brakes, as all drive elements must transmit the braking torque to the carriage. Furthermore, every element between the brake and the carriage has a negative effect on rigidity. ROBA® guidestop® safety brakes are therefore considerably more rigid than motor brakes, rod brakes or band brakes, which are often subject to backlash.

ROBA® guidestop® safety brakes by mayr® power transmission are available in pneumatic or electromagnetic versions in addition to the hydraulically opening design. The hydraulically releasing ROBA® guidestop® series covers nominal holding forces from 5000 to 34000 N with four sizes. The pneumatically releasing version offers the greatest variety of options: Six sizes with nominal holding forces from 700 to 15000 N are available in the standard product range. Both versions (i.e. pneumatically and hydraulically releasing) are available for all common linear guides. Electromagnetically opening rail brakes do not require any pneumatic or hydraulic equipment. mayr® power transmission developes this variant on request, customizing it for the respective application.