On Episode 1019 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Piyush Pandey, Senior Vice President, Institutional Equity Research (Lead Analyst) - IT, Telecom, Internet and Power at Centrum India as well as Masaharu Morita, Founder and Program Director at NURA - AI Health Screening Centre.

SHOW NOTES

(00:00) Stories of the Day

(00:47) All Signs Continue To Point To A Long War In West Asia

(02:24) More Indians Are Investing Overseas, And New Funds Are Keeping Up

(06:03) Jio Platforms Delivers A Solid Listing, A Status Check On India’s Telecom Sector

(14:27) Why More Indians Went Back To Cinema Halls Last Quarter

(15:19) How A 92 Year Old Japanese Camera And Film Company Is Innovating Diagnostic Healthcare In India

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NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on feedback@thecore.in.

Good morning, it's Thursday the 29th of October and this is Govindraj Ethiraj broadcasting and streaming weekdays from Mumbai, India's financial capital.

Our top stories and themes for the day…

All signs continue to point to a long war in West Asia.

More Indians are investing overseas and new funds are cropping up.

Jio platforms delivers a solid listing, a status check on India's telecom sector.

Why more Indians went back to cinema halls last quarter?

How a 92-year-old Japanese camera and film company is innovating diagnostic healthcare in India.

All Signs Continue To Point To A Long War In West Asia

Oil prices stayed high as tensions persisted in West Asia with Brent rising to a little over $115 a barrel now. Election results are being counted in Israel and while the outcome is not clear right now, a return to the previous regime in some way guarantees a resumption of fresh attacks on Iran which in any case has been promised by US President Donald Trump. However, what really matters is what or how the United States leads the way on the war and it does appear to be itching for a fresh round of bombing just after the midterm elections next week and presumably on more civilian targets as well. Meanwhile, Yemen's Houthis said on Tuesday they had hit Saudi Arabia's biggest oil refinery with a missile, intensifying their strikes against the world's second largest crude producer, Reuters reported.

Back home, the markets were uncertain despite a good listing by Jio platforms owned by Alliance Industries and more on that shortly. The Sensex recovered from the day's low of 72,604 closing 353 points down at 73,246. Similarly, the NSE Nifty 50 closed down 51 points at 22,699.

The broader indices were positive with the Nifty mid-cap up 0.5 and the small-cap index up 0.8%. Reuters report said that India's top money managers were launching a flurry of funds in Gift City, a tax-neutral hub to absorb the record sums that they are seeking to diversify their portfolios and sending overseas. At least half a dozen such funds have been launched in the past six months, including the Jio BlackRock Advantage World Equity Fund this week by the joint venture of Reliance's Jio Financial and BlackRock, who is also the world's largest asset manager. Reserve Bank of India data shows that international investments by individuals in India directly or through funds have more than doubled from a year to about $2.3 billion in the first half of 2026 and set to pass the 2025 full-year number of $2.65 billion.

India has about 135 million retail stock investors, many of whom are looking actively for investment opportunities overseas from New York to Kazakhstan, thanks to a sustained underperformance in local markets, the Reuters report said, quoting one analyst saying that investors are no longer looking at overseas exposure as a tactical allocation but increasingly as a permanent part of portfolio construction. One investor from Kota in Rajasthan told Reuters he invests in global exchange-traded funds and companies listed in markets like Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Better returns overseas and persistent rupee weakness has led me to grow the overseas portion of my portfolio to over 60 percent from about 5 percent in early 2025, this investor told Reuters, adding that he did understand metals mining and energy firms of the world.

India has capped overseas remittances at an annual $250,000 per person. There are rumours flying around that there could be some form of cap on that. While that may be a desire deep in the bureaucratic corridors of power, but even the partial implementation of something like this will most likely intensify a flight of capital.

And the reason investors are looking is simple. The benchmark nifty index is down 5.3 percent over the last two years, compared to a 47 percent gain in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index and a 32 percent rise in the S&P 500 in the US. Speaking of the rupee, it touched an intraday low of Rs.

95.29 and finally closed at Rs. 95.28 on Wednesday, thus posting a decline of Rs. 21 over its previous close.

We're all looking at spending trends for the coming few months, particularly the festival months. Credit card spending has already fallen about 5.9 percent year-on-year to about Rs. 204,000 crore in September.

This is the first decline since February 2021. One reason is last year's high base, a report from Carriage Ratings said. In September 2025, spending had jumped 13 percent over August after the GST rate cuts took effect and festive online sales began in the last week of the month.

Importantly, this year, festival sales start in October. Online spending, however, has fallen about 12.5 percent, while point-of-sale spending has grown 7.2 percent. Transactions overall rose about 23 percent, while the average transaction size fell 23 percent to about Rs. 3,343. A lot of card payments are being made through UPI. Also, we have far more cards and less transaction value.

Carriage Ratings says it expects spending to rise to about Rs. 2.28 to Rs. 2.38 lakh crores, that's Rs. 228,000 crores to Rs. 238,000 crores in October as festival sales begin. Meanwhile, India's industrial output growth slowed to a four-month low of 6.7 percent in September, thanks to a broad-based load-on across all major sectors, according to data from the National Statistics Office on Wednesday.

Now, this is the weakest reading since May, when the index of industrial production grew 5 percent. Three of the four broad sectors—manufacturing, electricity, gas supply, water supply, and waste management—slowed in September, compared to August.

Jio Platforms Delivers A Solid Listing, A Status Check On India’s Telecom Sector

The Reliance and Ambani-owned Jio platforms made a strong debut on the exchanges today, listing at a premium of over 21 percent to issue price, which is at Rs. 1,358, compared to its offer price of Rs. 1,119 for its roughly $3.2 billion IPO. The stock finally rose over 4 percent to close at Rs. 1,417 on Wednesday, ending the day at a valuation of over $136 billion or Rs. 13 lakh crores, which also helped lift the broader Reliance conglomerate's combined market capitalisation to about $320 billion, which makes it the top Indian company crossing the salt-to-aviation Tata Group. At listing, Jio platforms commanded a market capitalisation which was just behind Reliance Industries, the parent, which had a market capitalisation of Rs. 16.15 trillion. Jio had about 533 million subscribers as of June 2026 and carried nearly 60 percent of India's data traffic, according to company figures. So with Jio's listing, what changes, if at all, in India's telecom market, which is restricted in many ways in terms of players and competition, and has been for some time? I spoke with Piyush Pandey, Senior Vice President, Institutional Equity Research and Lead Analyst for IT, Telecom, Internet and Power at Centrum India, and I began by asking him to give us a quick snapshot of India's telecom sector before coming to the outlook.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Piyush Pandey: Currently, we have around say 3 plus 1 players in the telecom sector with top 2 players like Bharti, Airtel and Jio being the dominant players with almost 75-80% of the market share and the other 2 players like BSL and Vodafone have around 20% of the market share. So broadly, I would say industry has become sort of stable in terms of pricing discipline and we have seen price hikes 3 times over the last say 6-7 years and gradually ARPU has been increasing for all players. Bharti and Jio are gaining market share and Vodafone and BSL are sort of losing market share.

So, I would say in terms of size, both Bharti and Jio have closed around 1.2 lakhs crores and Vodafone and Airtel have closed around 40,000 crores and BSL around 20,000 crores. But most important thing is their pricing discipline and the price bars which we saw last decade now is completely behind.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And in terms of number of subscribers, how would you rank them and what's the overlap if so?

Piyush Pandey: So, number of subscribers, see Jio has close to 533 million customers, Bharti has closed around 370 million customers, Vodafone has 193 million customers and BSL has closed around 90 million customers. So broadly, Jio is the first one with customer market share of close to 40%, Bharti is the second one with around 33-34%, Vodafone has close to around 70-80% and BSL has 8-9%. Right.

Govindraj Ethiraj: And what characterises let's say success in a broad sense today in India's telecom market? Is it the ability to provide data at higher speeds, better connectivity, the quality of those connections of course or other factors?

Piyush Pandey: I would say ability to provide data on a huge scale at a minimum possible price with consistent connectivity. So, for example, see telecom is a business of scale and here marginal cost of data is almost negligible. Marginal cost of data is say 50 paisa to 1 rupee for like say 5G data.

So in that scenario, once you build a certain capacity, which is through spectrum and your investments in like say 4G or 5G technology, you have a certain capacity in terms of data throughput. In that case, you would like to maximise your capacity utilisation. That can give you certain ARPU and aim is to at least get ROC more than the cost of capital.

So in a way, basically you price your customers in a way that at least you are able to make return on capital more than the cost of capital which all these players are trying. So pricing per GB will not be the right idea.

Govindraj Ethiraj: The average revenue per user in India is currently what and how does that stack up versus other similar markets?

Piyush Pandey: So ARPU in India is close to around 200 rupees per month, where BSNL is close to around 264 rupees per month. Jio is close to around 216 rupees per month. Vodafone is close to around 179 rupees per month and BSNL is close to around 120 rupees per month.

So average comes to around rupees 200 and see in terms of pricing of data we remain among the lowest in the world at rupees 7 to 8 rupees per GB. That is how the data is getting priced in India and that is what I would say provides a scope that we might see some tariff hikes especially at the upper end.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Right and amongst the many products or services and offer between for example on fibre versus mobile connectivity, what is the more profitable avenue or avenues for all these telecom companies today?

Piyush Pandey: See fibre definitely has more EBITDA margin. Fibre has higher EBITDA margin but it also involves higher capex. So higher front capex provides higher margin.

So on a long-term basis fibre is something can generate significantly higher ROC but also in terms of fibre it is somewhat difficult to get like say permissions especially permissions from like say local authorities whereas mobile connectivity like say I would say margins are compared slightly lower versus fibre but it's sort of a volume game and where companies can easily target their customers like say they can easily reach their So I would say mobile connectivity provides a volume.

Fibre can provide the higher margin and the best strategy is to have a reasonably good mix of all these offerings.

Govindraj Ethiraj: And would any of these companies for example we talked about Jio or Airtel or Vodafone have any segment that's more profitable than the others or is that breakup roughly the same for everyone?

Piyush Pandey: See in terms of like say mobile connectivity I would say postpaid segment is more profitable versus prepaid segment. So for example like say for Bharti Airtel almost seven percentage of customers are postpaid 93% of prepaid customers but 7% of customers generate almost 12 to 13% of EBITDA. So in a way definitely they generate twice the amount of EBITDA compared to prepaid customers.

And I would say like one strategy of this telcos have been to premised excel so drive 2G to postpaid conversion or prepaid to postpaid conversion. So all these premised strategy is something which is aimed to like say drive higher margin as well as higher ROC.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Right, let me come back to Jio now. Stock listed at a 21% premium and closed also at a similar premium and seems to be stable for now. What's your sense in terms of the value of the stock in terms of its market capitalisation and the opportunity that it offers and the outlook for it in the context of everything that we've spoken of?

Piyush Pandey: I would say Jio of course currently is sort of like a pure play India based telecom company compared to Bharti which also has a Africa exposure. And for Jio at the current market capitalisation it is close to value right around I would say 12.5 times EBITDA on FY28. So I would say sort of expensive compared to Bharti.

I tell you it's sort of expensive compared to Bharti. Of course it remains a good long-term investment like in long term you might see like say incremental business coming from enterprise segment which is sort of very small Jio like. So enterprise segment plus business from like say growing department segment and something coming from AI and digital apps.

So a lot of optionality say maybe for like say three to five years down the line. As of now at the current price I would say sort of most of the near-term positives I would say priced right at that time.

Govindraj Ethiraj: So the group in general has been talking about AI and data centres as I understand data centres are not part of this venture and are sitting outside. But in general what to you as an analyst would be the big kickers in terms of either growth or profitability for either Jio or any of these telecom companies?

Piyush Pandey: So I would say incremental opportunities can come from like say they have like say significant distribution strength. So Jio like say for example partners with many like say AI companies like say Google or like say OpenAI. So one is like say they can partner with a front-end model companies where they can like say help them get access to Indian market.

Second like say I would say they also have a scope because they have huge amount of data with them. So without sharing I would say proprietary data they can even I would say train some sort of small language models with the help of the amount of data they have access to. So this is one thing plus also like say because of the connectivity business they can provide optic fibre connectivity to like say data centres and that can be like a good incremental business because India is expected to have close to around 8 to 10 gigawatt of data centre by FY30 from current 1.5 close to. So I would say that can be significant opportunity plus they also have options to sell more services to the same say mobile customers like say in terms of OTTs or like say international services. So add-on services they still have scope to provide.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Thank you so much for joining me.

Why More Indians Went Back To Cinema Halls Last Quarter

So more people are going to cinema halls, or at least did so in significant numbers in the last quarter. English-language blockbusters like the Odyssey and Spiderman earned more than Rs. 233 crore and Rs.

608 crore for PVR Inox, which reported second-quarter doubling thanks to a host of successful releases and high box-office collections. PVR saw a 23 percent year-on-year growth in gross box-office collections. Ticket sales increased nearly 18 percent year-on-year.

Occupancy expanded by 170 basis points, the company said. Average ticket price was up 14 percent. Average food and beverage spend also rose about 14 percent.

PVR Inox said it was on track to open about 90 to 100 new screens in FY27.

How A 92-Year-Old Japanese Camera Firm Is Transforming Indian Healthcare

Fujifilm is a 92-year-old Japanese film, photo film and camera company that you quite likely know of. What you may not know is that it also runs an AI screening venture in India called NURA, that's N-U-R-A, in partnership with Kerala-based Dr. Kutty's Healthcare.

The link between Fujifilm's traditional competence of films and its current foray into health screening is interesting, particularly when the venture here is run by a Fujifilm executive who has no specific training in medicine or health tech, and yet developed a new solution for tuberculosis screening, portable X-ray. I spoke with Masaharu Morita, founder and programme director at Noora AI Health Screening Centre, and I asked him how India was the start point to the Noora's inception and subsequent global expansion.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Masaharu Morita: So, Fujifilm was established around 90 years ago, so it's now towards 100 years. Start from a photography film and movie film, because during the war, U.S. stop shipment film from U.S., so that's why we have to make by ourselves, so that's why we established Fujifilm. But this film is used for the photography and the movie, but on the same time, we make X-ray film as well.

So, we make the picture of outside and inside. So, this X-ray film is now moving towards to the healthcare. So, we know how to make an imaging of inside and the film, so we made the IT system, and surround, and the packs, and MRI, CT, X-ray, and so on.

This become medical diagnostic division. So, when I joined the company in 2005, at that time was really transition time. From peak 2000 to 2010, is the photography film become boom, down.

I joined in 2005, then my CEO told me like, this company will crash. In the one first day from where I joined, I was shocked. He said like, if Toyota car disappear, Toyota will crash.

Fujifilm film crash, Fujifilm disappear. So, we have to change, never stop. Change, change, change.

So, from the beginning of the first year, we try to make change. So, we toward X-ray, CT, MRI, and we move a lot. So, now is the medical business become the biggest portion of Fujifilm group now.

So, we could make a good transition. So, this is the history of Fujifilm now.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. At what point did you start looking at diagnosis beyond just, let's say, films? I mean, because now today, you're actually screening for health conditions.

Earlier, you would maybe supply equipment or film to doctors or hospitals who would do that.

Masaharu Morita: Correct. For example, in Japan, we have two type of segment. If one is diagnostic and hospital segment, and one is a screening and preventive health, there's two categories there.

Because as a Japanese, we have to go annual health checkup for the cancer and the lifestyle disease, for everybody have to go. We can't pass. If I try to escape, company will punish me.

So, I cannot pass. So, everybody have to go. So, that's why the cancer is early-staging, finding, and treatable.

And the heart attack and diabetic is avoidable because there is a precaution. This is a good culture, but this culture is not much existing in the world. So, as Japanese, as technology company, I feel, why not ask to do that?

Actually, I knock, knock, knock many countries to do that, but it'd be difficult to do that by ministry. So, that's why I decided, okay, we will show how to do that, this kind of health screening programme in a private manner. Then, everybody will follow.

So, this is like a start consideration from 2020.

Govindraj Ethiraj: So, tell us about what were the next steps. So, once we said, okay, we are going to get into health screening, what did Fujifilm already have in terms of technology or equipment for health screening specifically? And what did you bring in after that?

And then, how did you start working with partners?

Masaharu Morita: Yeah, so, equipment, for example, to utilise for hospital and to utilise for sick people and healthy people is different. So, sick people, we have to identify clearly cancer, what kind of stage, et cetera. So, radiation, et cetera, doesn't matter much.

We have to find the disease and treat. This is most important. But for healthy individual, we can't use the same radiation.

So, we reduce as much as possible safely manner. For example, we utilise CT as ultra-low-dose CT. Normal CT require 20 millisievert, but we could make it one millisievert.

We could reduce 97% to utilise the CT safely manner for healthy individual. So, this kind of change we did. And also, for example, AI, also if they use in the hospital setup, that screening setup is different.

For example, in the hospital setup, like more clearly the cancer identification, et cetera. But screening is more abnormal identification with ultra-low-dose manner. So, we modify this AI system and the equipment toward the health screening.

So, this kind of things we are using everywhere. Also, we are providing this kind of equipment service in many hospitals as well.

Govindraj Ethiraj: I'm gonna come back to the partnership in a moment, but tell us about what you are primarily detecting for. Is it predominantly cancer or cancer strains or other things as well?

Masaharu Morita: So, generally, like why people die? Cause of death is a heart attack. Number two is a cancer.

So, these two things is very important. So, firstly, we identified your heart. Your heart is healthy heart or very calcified heart or your healthy heart or fatty heart.

So, this kind of things we can look at. And then if you have a dangerous heart, we can do the precaution. You go to the hospital to see by angiography.

And if blockage happen, better to open it to your coronary artery. Then heart attack not happen. But don't wait, heart attack will come.

So, this kind of thing is important in the heart. Another thing is a cancer. Cancer is nowadays is a spreading word in the world and become because like ageing.

For example, in Japan is average age is now 50 years old. It's very quite ageing. So, many people get a cancer.

If two person, one person will get. So, 50% of the people will get cancer in their lifetime. So, cancer, if we can find that early stage is treatable.

So, scanning and then we found it's any abnormality. Same with the cancer, we recommend him to go hospital to do biopsy. If cancer, remove it, then safe.

But if spread, cannot do it anymore. So, we are focussing this heart and cancer.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Amongst all the screenings that you've been doing mostly in India and now in other countries, because you did start in India, how many cases are you detecting cancer and usually is at what stage is it?

Masaharu Morita: Actually, we can find at a very early stage. I can't say exact number, but if hundreds of people will come, one, two people having a cancer, but we will send to the hospital and then after biopsy, et cetera, we can confirm a cancer. But at least like abnormal kind of cases, if hundreds of people will come, one, two, three, four kind of person will be is having abnormality of kind of cancer.

But for them, like a high visceral fat, for example, is a very high number. In Japan, the visceral fat, high visceral fat is very less because precaution, reduce the weight. But in India, for example, it's not that much precaution.

So, around 70% of people is obese. So, this is causing a heart attack, for example. So, this kind of things we have to address from the beginning.

So, we are not only cancer, but diabetic, visceral fat and heart and it's around the system, around 10% of people has some abnormality, actually.

Govindraj Ethiraj: And the model that you've used to expand and grow is through joint ventures or partnerships. So, why did you choose that path and why not say go at it as a 100% company?

Masaharu Morita: Basically, we are a technology company. Fujifilm is a manufacturing company. So, we manufacture the equipment, IT and AI to provide to the hospital and the hospital will do the treatment and the diagnostics.

So, we are B2B company, not B2C company. But talk about health screening programme is not much existing in the world. So, that's why we wanted to show how to do that.

So, we become B2B2C company, but alone, Fujifilm cannot do that. Some expert is required. So, that's why we selected the Dr. Kuti Group to establish together this kind of programme.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. You've worked on areas like tuberculosis detection. So, tell us about how you did that and why you chose that particular disease condition.

Masaharu Morita: Yeah, actually, before I start Neura, I start tuberculosis programme. 2010 to 2016, I was in Dubai to sell medical equipment in the Middle East and Africa. I visited many African countries as well.

Then, one of the cause of big problem was tuberculosis and HIV and malaria. This TB tuberculosis, I could feel somehow we have to tackle. Then, when I go back to Japan and then Japan team has created a very small portable x-ray system for home care because in Japan, many elder people cannot move out from the home.

So, that's why hospital doctor have to go home. So, doctor wanted to have some small x-ray ultrasound. So, we created and doctor bring to the home and take shooting, et cetera.

Then, once I had this idea, then why not? We can utilise this system to tuberculosis. We don't wait to the people to come after the heavy cough.

We go many rural area to do the scanning in each village to find the tuberculosis early stage to treat it. This is a much better idea. So, that's why I created this idea and I include AI and then work with WHO and also Stop TB programme.

Then, we provided this kind of concept in the world. So, this was like before neuro, I did, yeah.

Govindraj Ethiraj: So, in TB, what would you be looking for? Like, for example, you talked about visceral fact when it comes to cardiac health, but in TB, what are you looking for?

Masaharu Morita: TB is like a kind of infection disease in the lung, generally, in the lung. So, once we shoot the x-ray and then some hole is there or like some pneumonia kind of figure is there. So, this is TB.

So, tuberculosis with medication, like a two-month, three-month kind of medication, then it will be solved. So, but if later stage, it cannot come back, so early stage finding and the cure of this infection, then it will be fine.

Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. You're positioned as a AI-led company. So, tell us now about the role of AI and how it plays out in the detection and diagnosis in the screening efforts that you're putting in.

Masaharu Morita: For example, AI everywhere nowadays. I use more AI into the preventative space because this is a huge gap. For example, if in front of us 100 people is there, one is sick, 99 is healthy.

Hospital target one, but preventative health for 99. So, resource should be 99 times higher. Impossible.

How we can make it possible? We have to utilise technology. With this technology, we can manage these 99 people, but without technology, not possible.

So, I select this space, and the more aggressively we are making AI because to cover 99 people with available resources in a more efficient manner. So, this is what we are doing here.