Apple Inc plans to spend about $1 billion on original programming in the next 12 months, intensifying efforts to compete with Amazon.com and Netflix in video streaming, according to people familiar with the plan.

A new Los Angeles-based team, led by former Sony Corp television executives Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg, who were hired in June, will produce and buy television shows and films for Apple Music and other future video streaming products, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. The Wall Street Journal reported the new budget earlier Wednesday. An Apple spokesperson declined to comment.

With competition getting hotter in the affordable housing finance sector, private lender Axis Bank will waive 12 equated monthly installments (EMIs) on regular repayments of loans of up to Rs 30 lakh under the new scheme Shubh Aarambh Home Loans.

The lender has introduced Shubh Aarambh Home Loans, in which 12 EMIs are waived — four EMIs each after the fourth, eighth and 12th year — from the date of the first disbursement. The waiver will be in the form of reduction in tenure.

Vishal Sikka on Friday resigned as the chief executive (CEO) and managing director (MD) of Infosys Technologies, India’s second-largest software services company. While the board of Infosys accepted the resignation of Sikka with immediate effect and appointed U B Pravin Rao as the interim CEO & MD, Sikka has been appointed the executive vice-chairman of the company.

In a BSE filing, Infosys said Sikka reiterated his belief in the great potential of Infosys, but cited among his reasons to leave a continuous stream of "distractions and disruptions over the recent months and quarters, increasingly personal and negative as of late, as preventing management's ability to accelerate the Company's transformation”.

Apollo Hospitals Enterprise has slipped 7% to Rs 1,069, its lowest level since October 23, 2014 on BSE, in an otherwise firm market.

The National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) on Wednesday fixed the price for primary knee replacement of titanium alloy at Rs 38,740 while the price for revision knee replacement of any material was pegged at Rs 62,770.

Seoul: Hyundai Motor Co. said on Thursday it will launch a long-range electric vehicle with a driving range of 500km (311 miles) per charge after 2021, seeking to address investor concerns that it is lagging rivals in the green car race.

The automaker and affiliate Kia Motors Corp., which together rank fifth in global vehicle sales, also said they are planning 31 eco-friendly models by 2020, up from a previously flagged 28. The new additions include three plug-in hybrid vehicles, which come on top of eight battery-powered cars and two fuel-cell vehicles.

New Delhi: The country’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Thursday launched a sporty version of its mid-sized sedan Ciaz with petrol variant tagged at Rs9.39 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

The diesel smart hybrid trim of the ‘Ciaz S’ version, which comes with all new premium black interiors with grey chrome finishing, is priced at Rs11.55 lakh.

Bengaluru: HDFC Bank on Thursday cut interest rates on most of its savings accounts to 3.5% from 4%.

Customers with savings bank account balance of Rs50 lakh and above will continue to earn interest at 4% per annum, the lender said in a statement.

Mumbai: Engineering major Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) on Wednesday said it has agreed to sell its entire stake in its unlisted unit L&T Cutting Tools Ltd to IMC International Metalworking Companies BV, owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., for Rs174 crore.

L&T Cutting Tools, incorporated in 1952, manufactures fabricated metal products.

It was a mixed bag for bad loan recoveries by banks in the June quarter of FY18 over the previous year, data compiled by FE showed. While banks like State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI Bank and Axis Bank have reported higher recoveries, others like Punjab National Bank (PNB), Canara Bank and Union Bank of India have shown a dip in recoveries in Q1. According to the data, SBI reported the highest recovery at Rs 4,646 crore in Q1, among all lenders. SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya recently told reporters that the bank expects resolutions in corporate accounts.

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved a new metro rail policy, making private participation a must for states to get central assistance for new metro rail projects in the country. The policy will focus on innovative models of implementation and financing, as well as standardisation and indigenisation of hardware and software, to create jobs locally, finance minister Arun Jaitley said. “There will be a system-based approach (for sanctions of new projects). Economic internal rate of return (EIRR) should be 14% for approving new metro projects,” Jaitley said.

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