MUMBAI, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Indian engineering conglomerate
Larsen & Toubro Ltd on Friday slashed its order growth
guidance for the current fiscal year on slowing investments and
rising competition, sending its shares down more than 4 percent.

L&T, which operates in industries as diverse as engineering,
shipbuilding and software, said it expected new orders to grow
just 5 percent for the fiscal year ending March 2012, down from
its earlier forecast of at least 15 percent.

MUMBAI, Oct 20 (Reuters) – With a flashy new model of its
best-selling Swift hitting showrooms and India’s traditional
festive car sales boom just around the corner, September was
supposed to be a month to cheer for Maruti Suzuki, the country’s
biggest carmaker.

It didn’t work out that way.

Labour unrest that began on Aug. 29 has crippled production,
sending sales tumbling and allowing rivals to eat into its
market share in an industry fighting for customers as high costs
and interest rates bite.

MUMBAI, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Workers at Maruti Suzuki
, India’s biggest carmaker, halted production on Friday
as part of a long-running dispute, a company statement said,
sending the firm’s expected production losses from labour unrest
in 2011 to $330 million.

The losses compound the woes at Maruti, which saw a
21-percent drop in September sales as rising interest rates and
vehicle costs hurt demand in the world’s second-fastest growing
major auto market after China.

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI, Oct 13 (Reuters) – A four-day service
outage has cast a shadow over BlackBerry’s reputation in India,
one of the smartphone maker’s few growing markets, where the
frustration of hundreds of thousands of users could mean a
chance for its rivals to gain ground.

The repeated shutdowns of email and messaging services that
left BlackBerry users with only voice calls and SMS text
infuriated Indian customers, including a tennis star and a
Bollywood icon, leaving BlackBerry maker Research In Motion
scrambling to control the damage.

MUMBAI (Reuters) – The BSE Sensex ended up 2.6 percent on Wednesday to their highest close in over three weeks as investors cheered results from IT industry bellwether Infosys and shrugged off data suggesting growth in Asia’s third-largest economy was losing steam.

Strong revenue growth from India’s No. 2 software services exporter and a less-than-expected cut in its full-year sales outlook began the quarterly earnings season on a high, offsetting fears of slowdown at home and further afield.

MUMBAI, Sept 30 (Reuters) – London-listed shopping centre
developer Plaza Centers N.V. will invest around 10
billion rupees ($204 million) in its India operations across
five new projects over the next two- and-a-half years, an
executive of its India unit said on Friday.

Plaza, with 1.48 billion euros ($2 billion) of global
assets, sees rising spending in Asia’s third-largest economy
driving revenue growth of 10 to 12 percent as it aims to compete
in a market dominated by local players.

MUMBAI (Reuters) – State-run oil firms will raise petrol prices by nearly 5 percent from Friday, a move that eases their subsidy burden but adds near-term pressure to stubbornly high inflation in Asia’s third-largest economy.

Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd , Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd and Indian Oil Corp, which dominate fuel retailing in India, said they will increase their petrol prices by 3.14 rupees per litre.

MUMBAI, Sept 15 (Reuters) – State-run Indian oil firms will
raise petrol prices by nearly 5 percent from Friday, a move that
eases their subsidy burden but adds near-term pressure to
stubbornly high inflation in Asia’s third-largest economy.

Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd , Bharat Petroleum
Corp Ltd and Indian Oil Corp , which dominate
fuel retailing in India, said they will increase their petrol
prices by 3.14 rupees per litre.

MUMBAI, Sept 15 (Reuters) – Jones Lang LaSalle Inc (JLL.N: Quote, Profile, Research),
one of the world’s largest real estate service companies, sees
continued hesitancy in global real estate markets, its CEO said
on Thursday, but is confident the Asia Pacific region will fuel
growth.

The Chicago-based company posted slightly better-than-
expected second-quarter earnings in late July but cautioned that
the rebound in global commercial real estate over the last year
may be dissipating.