Opening thought. When we think of India’s telecom numbers every month and on a quarterly basis, the obsession tends to be on operator based subscriber numbers (who’s gained how many, and who’s lost the most). Easy to miss in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) quarterly report for April to June 2025, is that India now becomes the second country after China, to have clocked a billion internet subscribers. I remember a recent comment by Airtel’s Gopal Vittal, where he rightly points out that connectivity is solved, primary issues now are trust, security and inclusion. Mind you, India’s wireline internet base is still very small (47.49 million) compared with the wireless subscriber base (1,170.88 million) that relies on 5G/4G/3G. A silver lining, pointed out by research firm Techarc’s latest Insights Pro report, which notes, “wireline subscribers surged dramatically by 28.20% QoQ to 47.49 million. This rapid rise is attributed to fibre rollouts and a specific reporting change.” The one thing I’d be worried about, is the future for Tata Play, Dishtv and even Airtel’s Xstream DTH service. DTH subscribers fell 1.49% quarter on quarter, which is perhaps reflective of a shift towards OTT viewing, and also partly with IPTV finding renewed relevance with Reliance Jio and Airtel Xstream bundling. Worth keeping an eye on.
ANALYSIS: Your biometrics for UPI payments
Last week, most of you may remember we had analysed Razorpay and Yes Bank’s integration of biometrics (this could be fingerprints or facial recognition, depending on your phone) as authentication for credit card payments on websites and platforms that use Razorpay’s gateway. The latest Reserve Bank of India (Authentication mechanisms for digital payment transactions) Directions, 2025 circular, allow for this flexibility and convenience. Now, the same is extending to UPI payments as well. A watershed moment? Perhaps. For consumers, this means there’s an alternative to the hassle of punching in the UPI pin for every transaction (often in the sight of unknown humans in the vicinity). There are potentially more advantages to this.
As Razorpay pointed out, for card transactions nearly 35% of transactions fail due to OTP delays, incorrect entries, or redirection issues. In case of UPI, it is incorrect pins, poor internet connectivity at the time of making the transaction, or purely a privacy issue from prying eyes. RBI’s new framework mandates two-factor authentication, encouraging the move beyond OTP dominance towards more secure, harder-to-fake methods like device tokens and biometrics. For consumers, the upside is immediate: fewer failed transactions, faster checkout, and greater confidence for first-time users who stall at PIN entry. Expect higher completion rates in P2M flows (QR and tap) and a lift in ticket sizes where PIN anxiety suppressed spend.
The other big winners, apart from consumers — every single UPI all that you may be using for payments. PhonePe, Google Pay, CRED, Amazon Pay, you name it, and they’ll soon be adding biometrics as a method to authenticate UPI payments. The choice is now with the consumers, do they still want to use the good old PIN, or fingerprints or face scans.
The risk surface shifts partly to device theft, and spoofing (a fake QR smartly pasted atop a genuine QR in a store — don’t be surprised, it happens more than you expect). The other question here is, would the more affordable Android phones be accurate enough with fingerprint or facial authentication to successfully confirm a transaction in one go? For now, and as it should be, biometrics must remain an opt-in.
TECH SPOTLIGHT: HONEYWELL TRAVEL ACCESSORIES
If you travel often enough (some of you board flights much more often than I do, but still), particularly for work, the pouch of tech goodies should be absolutely on point. Fast chargers, docking accessories for your laptop, and a travel adapter to get you started with the different power socket types around the world, are three genres I worry about not having packed (through the entire flight) till I reach the destination and see that I have. Honeywell, a brand that is well known in the tech accessories space, has a well-rounded portfolio which is, in terms of real-world performance, equally impressive.
I’ll start with two docking systems, very relevant for slim laptops that often don’t have enough ports on themselves (my MacBook Air of choice has only two USB-C ports, for instance). Either of Honeywell’s Type C Docking Station 9-in-1 (priced around ₹2,789) and Type C Docking Station 6-in-1 (around ₹2,149) would be very worthwhile picks for additional connectivity for your Mac or Windows laptop. Common on both specs would be an HDMI port with 4K resolution support, 100-watt power delivery out for external peripherals on Type-C, Thunderbolt 4, three USB 3.0 ports and a gigabit ethernet port. The former, adds a USB 2.0 port, a 3.5mm audio out and an SD as well as TF card slot each.
The Universal World Travel Adapter 38W (this is priced around ₹1,549) isn’t just an intuitive plug point convertor for EU, US, UK, CN, and AUS sockets (a wrong plug pin type can be a stressful point, when work begins a few hours upon landing), but also the convenience of a USB-A (18-watt max) and USB-C (tops out at 20-watt) port each, which in total adds up to 38-watt of charging speed.
A definite favourite among this collective is Honeywell’s Zest charger GaN 140-watt charger (this will cost around ₹7,769). This gallium nitride semiconductor powerhouse has two USB-A and two USB-C ports each — the former peaking out at 30-watt each while the latter of course can do 140-watt collectively or when used singularly. As it is with these types of chargers, which ports and how many devices you plug in for charging simultaneously decide the specifics of calculation. For instance, using one Type-C and one Type-A port will mean 100-watt + 30-watt. Using just both of the latter, means 30-watt + 30-watt. In my tests, the Zest charger GaN 140-watt charger remains extremely cool even when all four ports are charging devices simultaneously, including a MacBook Pro.
EDITOR’S MARGIN: REVOLUT LANDS IN INDIA
Things in India’s fintech space could get interesting soon. UK’s global fintech platform Revolut, which has closed 65 million customers worldwide, is the closest it ever has been to signing up users in India. Having secured a payments license in April 2025, the platform should go Live in India in the coming weeks, and largely replicate a global model for a wide spectrum digital payments app that includes subscription tiers that’ll define rewards and benefits. There will be a prepaid instrument wallet, or PPI wallet for making online or offline transactions as well as bill payments, a domestic prepaid card (think of this as a debit card) linked to the wallet, and likely a forex card. In some countries, they enable investments in stocks and commodities, but it is unlikely that’ll be available in India soon. All things considered, Revolut is absolutely not just another payments app, particularly if global payments and the forex card elements are integrated well. But for the huge chunk of domestic transactions they hope to corner, Revolut will certainly worry a number of payment platforms including Amazon Pay and Paytm, as well as payments bank account platforms including Airtel and Jio.
CAR CORNER: RESPONSIBILITY BEYOND THE SHOWROOM
A few days ago, an email from Mercedes Benz landed in my mailbox. It tells me that Mercedes-Benz India, the country’s largest luxury car manufacturer, is now in a partnership with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to skill 1000 youth and women at world-class Skill Development Centres established under this initiative in Pune and Delhi-NCR. They call this development ‘transformative’ and I wouldn’t disagree on the basis of the scale that they are mentioning. The idea is clear — “This comprehensive Corporate Social Responsibility initiative will empower talented youth and women, providing them with industry-relevant automotive skills aligned with global standards,” they say. This got me thinking. What is up with automakers in India, and their involvement in social work. Turns out, it is a very bright picture.
Tata Motors, a shining example, stands out for its broad, multi-pillar CSR strategy. Just last month, their 11th Annual Corporate Social Responsibility Report documented a positive impact on 1.47 million lives across 109 aspirational districts of the country, via initiatives in rural development, water conservation, education, and livelihood support. During a year when large swathes of the state of Maharashtra struggled with drought, Tata Motors helped restore as many as 356 water bodies in 10 districts. That, they calculate, to around 700 crore litres of water capacity being restored, for farmers and villages.
Over the years, Mahindra too has focused on multiple pillars, including sustainable rural development, women’s empowerment in agriculture, clean energy adoption in villages, and community health. As Anand Mahindra, Chairman of Mahindra Group noted in the latest Sustainability report, “Mahindra Susten is driving the future of renewable energy with its investment in a 150 MW hybrid project, integrating wind and solar power to deliver clean energy at scale to our Mahindra Group companies.” It is expected this initiative will significantly expand the automaker’s renewable energy footprint, reducing carbon emissions from direct operations.
The three key pillars for Maruti Suzuki India Limited are road safety, skill development and community upgrade. The latter specifically talks about a need to fasten improvement of infrastructure around healthcare and education. Their ten main CSR projects for this fiscal include a multi-speciality hospital in Sitapur in Gujarat, supporting vocational training through Japan India institute for Manufacturing (JIMs) and vocational training support to the government’s Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs).
