MAM
Pepsi Lipton alliance launches Lipton Iced tea in bottles
BANGALORE: Last year, two giants Pepsi and Hindustan Lever got hitched to each other in order to exploit their respective strengths to market, sell and distribute a humble product such as tea in India. More specifically, the Lipton ready-to-drink (RTD) range of teas and tea-based beverages.
Since then, select markets in India have been seeded with Lipton Ice tea in cans, tetrapaks. Today, the duo announced that the Pepsi Lipton Alliance would be rolling out the cooling beverage in 500 ml PET bottles and 250 ml glasses. The roll out will cover 17 cities in the next few weeks.
The target audience initially would be the 500 million strong urban and later semi-urban Indian youth followed by the rural areas, which as per the alliance’s studies indicate are more health conscious and are open to trying new offerings, to experiment
At the press conference to announce the launch, Pepsi India Holdings chairman Rajeev Bakshi defined three categories of space for the Iced teas product – the fun product, the good for you product and the better for you product. He pointed out that “Litpon Iced tea is being positioned in the ‘better for you’ space model for the youth and not as another variant of tea or ‘chai’.”
The launch is being strongly supported by exciting TV advertising, outdoor communication and on-the-ground promotions, adds a company release.
Both the companies are tightlipped about ad spends. All that Bakshi, while speaking to Indiantelvison.com, was willing to commit was that the budget would , “initially be more than is a norm in the industry, say at least as much as the budget during the launch of Mountain Dew.”
The total carbonated soft drinks market in terms of consumer spends is
Rs 60 billion. The alliance hopes to garner between five to ten percent of
this market over the next five years.
Brands
Oracle layoffs affect up to 30,000 employees globally
Job cuts span US, India and more, staff cite abrupt emails, uncertainty.
MUMBAI: April began with an inbox shock and for thousands, it ended with an exit. Oracle has carried out a sweeping round of layoffs, impacting an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 employees across its global operations, even as the company continues to report strong business performance. The job cuts were communicated via emails sent early on April 1, affecting staff across multiple regions including the United States, India, Canada and parts of Latin America. The reduction spans a wide range of roles and functions, though the company has not disclosed specific criteria behind the decisions.
In the days following the layoffs, employees have taken to platforms such as LinkedIn to share their experiences, many describing the process as abrupt and unsettling. Several posts pointed to a lack of prior indication, with notifications arriving suddenly in early-morning messages.
A recurring concern has been the impact on long-tenured staff. Users reported that employees with decades of experience were among those let go, raising broader questions about job security even for seasoned professionals within large technology firms.
The layoffs have also sparked anxiety about the wider direction of the sector. As companies continue to invest heavily in automation and artificial intelligence, workforce recalibration is becoming more common often accompanied by uncertainty around future roles and skills.
For many affected employees, the immediate challenge lies in navigating career transitions in an increasingly competitive job market, with posts reflecting concerns about stability and next steps.
The development comes against a backdrop of strong financial performance at Oracle, which recently reported a 22 percent year-on-year increase in revenue, alongside continued growth in its cloud infrastructure business. The company has also been committing significant capital towards artificial intelligence and data centre expansion.
The contrast between growth and job cuts has added to the unease, underscoring a broader shift in how large technology firms balance expansion with efficiency sometimes at the cost of the very workforce that helped build that growth.
