Time for India to focus on business of business, says Uday Kotak
New Delhi, June 3
Uday Kotak, Founder and Non-Executive Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, emphasised that it is time for India to focus on the business of business now that other distractions have concluded. This call to action comes as global technology giants scale up their financial capacity to build next-generation infrastructure, highlighting a massive scale gap between global tech corporations and the Indian corporate landscape.
Kotak drew a direct comparison between the financial metrics of the global giant technology company, Google, and the entire Indian corporate market to highlight the difference in scale of investment happening globally.
"Google, which is cash surplus, just announced an additional capital raise of $80 bn," Uday Kotak said on X. "Google annual profit is $160 bn, last quarter $62 bn, and market cap $4.5 trillion. That is close to total profits and market cap of all Indian listed companies put together," Kotak said.
Kotak highlighted that this investment is not parallel to India, but an eye-opening moment for the country's economic future.
"It's a wake-up call to all companies to invest in the future, whatever the present maybe," Kotak said. "Now that IPL is done and dusted, time for India to focus on the business of business," Kotak added.
The comments follow a major financial move by Google's parent company, Alphabet, which announced a proposed USD 80 billion equity capital raise to expand artificial intelligence infrastructure and compute capabilities.
According to an Alphabet press release on Tuesday, the tech giant plans to launch massive equity offerings to finance its world-class artificial intelligence compute infrastructure, driven by unprecedented customer demand.
The extensive capital initiative splits across multiple financial instruments. Alphabet will launch concurrent underwritten public offerings worth USD 30 billion, divided evenly between USD 15 billion in depositary shares representing mandatory convertible preferred stock and USD 15 billion in Class A and Class C stock. Furthermore, an ATM (at-the-market) offering program targeting USD 40 billion for Class A and Class C stock will commence in the third quarter of 2026.
Alphabet reached a specific agreement to sell USD 10 billion of stock to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. in a private placement. This transaction comprises USD 5 billion in Class A Common Stock at a price of USD 351.81 per share and USD 5 billion in Class C Capital Stock at a price of USD 348.20 per share, adding to a position Berkshire has consistently built since the third quarter of 2025.
— ANI
Reader Comments
Sir ji, aapne IPL ka reference de diya, ab toh pura desh sunega. 😄 But seriously, this comparison is scary. We are stuck in local mindset while the world is building AI infrastructure. Indian companies need to invest more in R&D and innovation instead of just real estate and FMCG.
Kotak sahab, aapne to hila diya. But I think the issue is deeper. Our regulatory environment makes it tough for companies to scale like Google. We need policy reforms that encourage risk-taking and long-term investment. Otherwise, we will always be catching up.
Yes! Finally someone from the top is saying this. We are too focused on politics and entertainment. Google investing $80 billion in AI... Meanwhile, our IT companies are still doing customer support and backend maintenance. Time to wake up and compete globally. 💪
I agree with the sentiment but respectfully, comparing entire Indian market to one company is a bit unfair. India's strength is in services and small businesses. That said, yes, we need to build more tech giants. But let's not underestimate our domestic market either.
Great perspective from Uday Kotak. But I would add that 'business of business' also means ethical business. We saw what happened with Hindenburg and Adani. Growth without transparency will not sustain. Indian companies need to be globally competitive AND trustworthy. ✨
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