MAM
P&G continues robust spends on ad and promo in Q2 FY13
MUMBAI: Keeping up with the trend of FMCG companies expanding media spends, Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Health Care Ltd (PGHHCL) upped its advertising expenditure by 35.77 per cent for the second quarter ended 31 December. The company spent Rs 945.8 million in the second quarter compared with Rs 696.6 million a year earlier.
The ad spends exceeded the company‘s net profit in the second quarter by a wider margin compared with a year earlier. In the second quarter of FY13, the company‘s net profit was Rs 539.9 million, up 5.47 per cent from Rs 511.9 million a year earlier. Its total income in the second quarter grew by 32.68 per cent to Rs 4.71 billion from Rs 3.55 billion a year earlier.
The company‘s advertising spend to total income ratio was up marginally in Q2 FY13 to 20.09 per cent from 19.61 per cent a year earlier.
For the half year ended 31 December, P&G spent Rs 1.63 billion on advertising and promotion. This is a 22.56 per cent increase from H1 FY12‘s Rs 1.33 billion. The company‘s total income for the first half rose by 28.77 per cent to Rs 8.46 billion from Rs 6.57 billion a year earlier. The company‘s profit for the first half stood at Rs 992.6 million, up 5.63 per cent from Rs 393.7 million a year earlier.
P&G managing director Shantanu Khosla said, “Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Health Care Ltd has sustained & improved the past quarter‘s strong growth momentum. We have registered robust sales and volume growth for the quarter ended December 31, 2012, as we implement our proven business model of delivering value to the consumers combined with effective pricing and productivity which is helping deliver consistent top and bottom-line growth.”
Brands
Amazon doubles down on Anthropic with $25bn AI investment plan
Deal locks in massive compute capacity and pushes Claude deeper into AWS stack
MUMBAI: Amazon and Anthropic have significantly expanded their strategic partnership, committing to a long-term collaboration that combines billions in fresh investment with one of the largest AI infrastructure deals to date.
At the heart of the agreement is Anthropic’s plan to spend more than $100 billion over the next decade on AWS technologies. This includes access to up to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity powered by successive generations of Trainium chips, alongside tens of millions of Graviton cores. The scale signals a clear intent to future-proof the infrastructure behind its fast-growing Claude models.
In parallel, Amazon will invest $5 billion in Anthropic immediately, with the option to add up to $20 billion more tied to performance milestones. This builds on the $8 billion the tech giant has already committed to the AI firm.
The collaboration also tightens product integration. Anthropic’s full Claude Platform will now be accessible directly within AWS, allowing developers to use its native tools without leaving their existing cloud environment. The models are already widely used through Amazon Bedrock, where more than 100,000 customers are running Claude for tasks ranging from customer support to scientific research.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said, “Our custom AI silicon offers high performance at significantly lower cost for customers, which is why it’s in such hot demand.” He added that Anthropic’s long-term commitment to Trainium reflects the progress both companies have made in building scalable AI infrastructure.
Anthropic CEO and co-founder Dario Amodei said, “Our users tell us Claude is increasingly essential to how they work, and we need to build the infrastructure to keep pace with rapidly growing demand.” He noted that the partnership would help advance research while serving a rapidly expanding user base.
The two companies have already been working closely since 2023. Their joint efforts include Project Rainier, a massive AI cluster featuring hundreds of thousands of Trainium chips, now used to train and deploy newer versions of Claude. The new agreement extends this momentum, with fresh capacity expected to come online through 2026, including next-generation Trainium3 and Trainium4 chips.
Anthropic’s growth has been equally striking. The company says its annualised revenue run rate has crossed $30 billion, up sharply from about $9 billion at the end of 2025, driven by surging enterprise and consumer demand. That rapid uptake has also strained infrastructure, making this expanded deal as much about stability as it is about scale.
The partnership will also expand globally, with increased inference capacity planned across Asia and Europe, ensuring Claude’s reach keeps pace with its popularity.
From powering ride-hailing support systems to accelerating drug research workflows, Claude’s use cases continue to broaden. With this deal, Amazon and Anthropic are not just adding more compute, they are doubling down on a shared bet that AI’s next leap will be built on deeper, tighter integrations between models and infrastructure.
If the past few years were about proving the promise of generative AI, this alliance suggests the next phase will be about building it at industrial scale.
