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Pastimes : Ask Mohan about the Market -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KENNETH R SANDERS who wrote (9764)	11/29/1997 12:58:00 PM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18056

India's industry slows down - 200 Million midle class consumers (Wary interesting -8<);) Multinational companies expected returns that may be unrealistic* From Correspondent Anita Pratap November 28, 1997: 2:38 p.m. ET NEW DELHI, India (CNNfn) - In India, multinational companies have been rushing in, looking for millions of new customers. But the nation is experiencing an industrial slowdown. Infrastructure bottlenecks -- shortages of electricity and coal as well as inadequate transportation -- are cited as major reasons. Another is a wrong assessment by many, especially big multinational companies, of the real size and purchasing power of India's middle class. Philips NV , along with several other multinational companies like Whirlpool, Peugeot and Reebok, have lost money. An Indian business magazine estimates multinational companies, or MNCs, have lost $500 million in India in the past few years. "There has been an enormous increase in competition with good quality products and that has obviously driven prices down," said S.L. Rao, an economist. "It has increased marketing and advertising expenditure and therefore it has eroded margins." Experts also blame these multinational companies for wrongly assessing the Indian market. "Like lemmings, who follow each other every few years to drown in the ocean, mulitnational companies in consumer products in India, including cars, have followed each other into the wrong segment of the market," said Rao. They all vied for the estimated 200 million middle class, while not realizing only a few in this segment can afford expensive products. Would be interesting to compare them to Westen Economies as size. The most surprising to me are the reported 20%+ of Middle Class, which I asumed to be more like 10% to 15% of the general population. India will be a big downdraft on European economies, especialy UK, Benelux and Germany. Haim

To: KENNETH R SANDERS who wrote (9764)	11/29/1997 1:19:00 PM
From: Joseph G.	Respond to of 18056

Ken, welcome to the realm of (partialy) sane! -g- Joe

To: KENNETH R SANDERS who wrote (9764)	11/29/1997 10:00:00 PM
From: Slide Rule	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18056

Kenneth, any word on Jack Raines since he left SI? Is he still holding court on Prodigy or AOL? thanks in advance.