Top 5 tech and startup stories of the day

Top-deck churn continues at Tata Digital as Naveen Tahilyani is leaving after just one year. This and more in today’s ETtech Top 5.

Also in the letter:
■ Foxconn preps India's iPhone base
■ OpenAI’s hardware foray
■ Swiggy launches Drops
ETtech Exclusive: Naveen Tahilyani steps down as Tata Digital CEO after just a year at the helm

In a surprise move, Tata Digital CEO and MD Naveen Tahilyani resigned just a year after being handpicked by Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran to lead the group’s digital commerce push.

New gig: UK-based insurance giant Prudential PLC announced that Tahilyani will join as regional CEO for India, Africa, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar and will also head the company's health vertical.

Uphill task: Tahilyani, a Tata veteran and former Tata AIA Life Insurance CEO, was brought in to enforce execution rigour, financial discipline, and strategic focus across Tata Digital’s fragmented portfolio, including BigBasket, 1mg, Tata Cliq, and the Neu app. He was also tasked with reviving the struggling superapp.

Also Read: Tata Sons questions BigBasket’s qcomm lag, pushes for financial investor amid rivals' onslaught

Striking out: Tahilyani’s role diminished recently as Tata Group prepared BigBasket and 1mg for independent fundraising and eventual IPOs. “Tata Digital became less relevant as a consolidated unit, with plans to raise capital together falling through,” a source told us.

Laying down strategy:

• Refocused efforts on core consumer brands like Croma and Tata Cliq.
• Paused backend integration of BigBasket, 1mg and Tata Cliq to improve Neu user experience.
• Approved 1mg’s offline expansion.

Top deck churn: Tahilyani joined amid continued senior exits. Since Myntra founder Mukesh Bansal’s departure in 2022, Tata Digital has seen repeated leadership changes, including under Tahilyani’s watch.
Honasa Consumer reports net profit decline in Q4 FY25
Varun Alagh and Ghazal Alagh, founders, Honasa Consumer

Mamaearth’s parent company, Honasa Consumer, reported a year-on-year (YoY) decline in net profit for Q4 FY25.

Financials:

• Net profit: Fell 16% to Rs 25 crore, compared to Rs 30 crore in the same quarter last year.
• Revenue from operations: Rose 13% to Rs 534 crore, up from Rs 471 crore.
• Ebitda margin: Fell to 5.1% vs 7% in Q4FY24.
• Gross profit margin: Improved by 76 basis points year-on-year to 70.7% YoY.

Strategy shift:

• Mamaearth: The company noted that strategic changes at Mamaearth are delivering results, with double-digit year-on-year growth in key categories across e-commerce and modern trade in Q4 FY25.
• The Derma Co.: Achieved Rs 100 crore in annual recurring revenue (ARR) through offline channels.
• Retail distribution: Expanded by 26% YoY to 2.36 lakh outlets. Meanwhile, younger brands continued to grow, recording over 30% YoY growth in FY25.

Verbatim: Speaking to ET, Honasa Consumer’s cofounder and CEO Varun Alagh said that the negative impact of the restructuring exercise has tided over. “The positive delta that (this process) will start to deliver is something we will see in the next fiscal,” he said.
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Dorminator: Foxconn preps 300-acre base for India's iPhone army

Despite US president Donald Trump’s directive to Tim Cook to hold off on building in India, Apple’s manufacturing push remains firmly on track — evident in the steady buzz at Foxconn’s Devanahalli plant.

Driving the news: It’s business as usual at Foxconn's 300-acre campus in Karnataka, where the contract manufacturer is now constructing employee dormitories, a core element of its operations model.

The company is investing $2.56 billion in the facility, located 34 km from Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport. It aims to manufacture around 100,000 iPhones by December this year.


Women first: The dorms, set to be completed by the end of 2025, will house 30,000 workers, making it Foxconn’s largest facility in India. Employees told us that women workers will be prioritised for housing, as they make up 50-80% of the workforce at the plant.

This focus follows past allegations of gender-based discrimination in Foxconn’s hiring practices.
Sam Altman's partnership with Jony Ive furthers OpenAI's hardware ambitions
(L-R) Jony Ive, iPhone designer and Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI

OpenAI is taking a bold step into hardware with its $6.5 billion acquisition of io, the secretive artificial intelligence (AI) startup founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive.

Driving the news:

• Altman has joined forces with Jony Ive, the visionary behind Apple’s iPhone, to create hardware that is purpose-built for AI.
• The move underscores Altman's ambition to create a fully integrated AI ecosystem that spans large language models, custom chips, data centres, and devices.

Throwing shade:

• In the video announcing the deal, Ive took a veiled swipe at Apple, describing today’s products as “decades-old” and calling it logical to move beyond “legacy products.”
• Altman also echoed this sentiment. While praising the iPhone and MacBook as “stellar”, he claimed a prototype AI device developed by io is the “coolest piece of technology the world will have ever seen.”

Current state:

• Google already operates a full-stack AI ecosystem, including its Pixel hardware, while Microsoft and Amazon are heading in the same direction.
• Despite integrating AI features into its devices, Apple appears to be lagging behind in developing hardware specifically designed for AI, a space many expect to dominate.
• It has partnered with OpenAI to upgrade Siri, but the voice assistant continues to trail its rivals.

Also Read: ChatGPT user base grew fourfold in a year: Sam Altman
Swiggy launches ‘Drops’ for limited-edition dishes by top chefs

Amid a slowdown in the food delivery sector, Swiggy has rolled out Drops, a new feature that offers customers exclusive, limited-edition dishes curated by top chefs across India.

How it works:

• Partner restaurants create special recipes that don’t appear on their regular menus.
• Launch dates and times for each Drop are announced in advance via Swiggy’s social media.
• Customers can pre-register for slots through the Swiggy app.
• Orders are fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis, reinforcing the exclusivity of the offering.
• The feature is currently available in select cities, with plans to expand soon.

High engagement: Siddharth Bhakoo, chief business officer at Swiggy Food Marketplace, said Drops aims to make food ordering rare and exciting. It’s not just a novelty for users; it allows restaurant partners to experiment with new creations and strengthen customer loyalty.

Also Read: Swiggy Q4: Losses nearly double to Rs 1,081 crore despite 45% revenue growth

In other news: In a bid to expand its food delivery use cases, Swiggy announced a student-exclusive discount programme last week, offering lower rates on its membership programmes (Swiggy One and OneLite).

• Rival Zomato is also tweaking its fee structure amid rising losses.
• The Deepinder Goyal-led platform recently introduced a ‘rain fee’ even for its Gold subscribers.

Zomato now charges a “long distance service fee” for deliveries beyond a 4-km radius.