Air taxis are landing in India soon 🚁

600% AI rally, Wipro Q4 inline, and layoffs hit BBC.

🗓️ Morning, folks! ☀️

Thursday wasn’t the best day for markets. 👎🏻

Nifty and Sensex ended with slight losses as investors booked profits after the recent rally.

The biggest drag came from banking stocks, with the Nifty Bank index falling nearly 700 points from its intraday highs.

It wasn’t all bad, though. IT, capital goods, and metal stocks gained about 1% each.

💡 Spotlight: India’s global rank drops again ⬇️

India’s economic ranking story has taken a surprising turn.

India has slipped to 6th largest economy in nominal GDP terms after UK, whom we overtook in 2022, according to IMF’s latest rankings (April 2026).

Not long ago, India was expected to overtake Japan, with a GDP of around $3.9 trillion.

The reason? A change in the way India’s economy is measured made its size look smaller, and a weaker rupee also dragged its global ranking down.

Let’s hit it! 💪🏻

1 Big thing: Wipro Q4 came in steady 👍🏻

Another IT major Wipro reported its Q4 results, and it’s pretty much in-line with expectations.

Quick breakdown:

Revenue (₹): up 2.7% QoQ to ₹24,017 crore
Net profit: down 1.8% YoY to ₹3,502 crore
Revenue ($): up 0.6% QoQ to $2.65 billion

It expects its IT services revenue for the next quarter to be between $2.59 billion and $2.65 billion.

There was some good news for investors, though.

The company is buying back shares worth ₹15,000 crore, which means it’s giving money back to investors. It’s slightly lower than the ₹16,000 crore buyback in 2023, but still a big move.

On the deal front, things look stable. Total bookings came in at $3.45 billion, up 3.2% sequentially, while large deals contributed $1.44 billion.

Headcount update: Wipro had about 2.4 lakh employees at the end of March 2026, adding just 135 people from the previous quarter, as it continues to hire cautiously due to uneven demand across sectors.

What’s next: the Bengaluru-based IT firm expects its revenue next quarter to stay flat or dip slightly by up to 2%, after adjusting for currency changes.

2. Air taxis are landing in India soon ✈️

IndiGo is investing ₹10 crore in Sarla Aviation, entering the electric air taxi space, through its venture arm IndiGo Ventures.

What does it do: founded in 2023, Sarla Aviation builds electric flying taxis for city travel.

Its aircraft, ‘Shunya,’ can carry up to 6 passengers and use helipads across places like hotels and hospitals, with a planned launch in Bengaluru by 2028.

Big theme: IndiGo’s move comes after its earlier deal with Archer Aviation which fell through due to delays.

Globally, airlines are still betting big on flying taxis, Joby Aviation is backed by Delta and Toyota, while Archer has funding from United Airlines.

The eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) market itself is taking off, expected to grow from $1 billion in 2025 to over $17 billion by 2034.

3. From shoes to AI 👟

The AI rush is getting a little wild. A US-based shoe brand now wants to reinvent itself as an AI company, and the market liked it.

The deets: within hours of the announcement, its stock shot up nearly 600%. Allbirds plans to rebrand as ‘NewBird AI’ and pivot from selling sneakers to offering cloud computing power and AI services.

Why now: the company has seen a steep fall from grace. It once touched a valuation of $4 billion, but recently agreed to sell itself for just $39 million, a massive drop.

To fund the shift, the San Francisco-based firm has secured $50 million from an unnamed investor.

Not something new: back in the dot-com era, companies slapped “.com” onto their names to ride the hype. During the crypto boom, Long Island Iced Tea became Long Blockchain overnight.

Even today, bitcoin miners are pivoting to AI, and earlier this year, a tiny karaoke company saw its stock skyrocket after announcing an AI tool for trucking.

We broke this down on video too! ⚡️

Air India’s turnaround is not going well.

The Tata-owned airline posted losses of over ₹22,000 crore in FY26, driven by longer flight routes, rising fuel costs, and global disruptions.

Now, Tata and Singapore Airlines are in talks to inject fresh capital, though it may not be enough. Add a leadership exit, safety concerns, and falling passenger confidence, and the challenge deepens.

Full story here

5. India scrolls billions but who actually buys? 👀

India has hundreds of millions of people online, but most are still just scrolling, watching videos, and chatting rather than actually buying.

While over 700 million consume content, only around 300 million shop online, and a very small group shops frequently.

That’s beginning to change as UPI, now handling over 20 billion transactions a month, along with quick commerce and influencer-driven discovery, is making it easier and more natural for people to spend online.

India is still largely a scrolling economy, but it is slowly learning how to become a buying one.

Full Story Here

6. Stocks that kept us interested 🚀

What went up ⬆️

💵 HDB Financial Services shares rallied 6.4% after strong quarterly results, marking their biggest one-day gain since listing last year.

💉Alembic Pharmaceuticals rose after it received USFDA approval for its generic version of Methotrexate Injection, a medicine used to treat cancer and certain autoimmune diseases.

💊 Aurobindo Pharma gained after it announced a ₹800 crore share buyback. April 17 is the record date, so investors needed to buy shares by April 16 to be eligible.

⬆️ John Cockerill India shares gained 3% after it won a ₹300 crore order from JSW Steel to design, build, and set up a galvanising line at its Khopoli plant.

What went down ⬇️

📡 Tejas Networks shares fell 4% after the company reported a wider net loss for the March quarter.

What else are we snackin’ 🍿

🤝 FTA deal: India & New Zealand will sign a free trade agreement on April 27, aiming to double trade to $5 billion and attract $20 billion in investments.

🔐 Cyber pact: SEBI and Department of Telecommunications (DoT) signed an agreement to share data and curb telecom misuse in financial frauds, boosting investor protection.

🚗 Market slide: Maruti Suzuki’s market share fell to a 13-year low in FY26, declining sharply from its earlier dominance in India’s car market.

👗 IPO plans: Ethnic wear brand Libas is targeting an IPO by early next fiscal as it ramps up store expansion.

📉 Job cuts: BBC plans to cut up to 2,000 jobs, about 10% of its workforce, in its biggest downsizing in 15 years amid financial pressure and streaming competition.

And that’s a wrap. Pour yourself an extra one this weekend. 🥂