Brands
Delhivery delivers the goods in 15 minutes flat
MUMBAI: Speed demons, rejoice. Delhivery, India’s largest fully integrated logistics provider, is bringing its 15-minute pickup service to Mumbai and Hyderabad, promising to whisk parcels across town faster than you can say “stuck in traffic.”
The company launched its on-demand intracity service via the Delhivery Direct app on 15 December, targeting small businesses, direct-to-consumer brands, and individuals who need something delivered yesterday—or at least within the hour. Customers can summon two-wheelers for smaller parcels or upgrade to three and four-wheelers when the load gets hefty.
“We are thrilled to expand Delhivery Direct’s local on-demand service to Mumbai and Hyderabad, bringing our fast, affordable, and reliable intracity logistics to two more major markets,” said Delhivery head of intracity business Nikhil Vij. The launch brings the company’s footprint to five key cities, including Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, and Ahmedabad.
The service offers real-time tracking across commercial and residential hubs in both cities. The app, available on Google Play and Apple’s App Store, also handles intercity shipments to over 18,850 pin codes nationwide—though presumably those take longer than 15 minutes.
Since its inception, Delhivery has fulfilled over four billion shipments and serves more than 48,000 customers. With India’s e-commerce market booming and everyone wanting everything now, the company is clearly betting that faster is better. Whether Mumbai’s notorious traffic will cooperate with that 15-minute promise is another matter entirely.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
