India’s stock market may be approaching a broader phase of recovery as four key cycles of macro, earnings, credit growth and market sentiment begin to move in the same direction, according to Nimesh Chandan, CIO of Bajaj Finserv AMC, which manages assets worth around $4 billion.

Chandan said the economic cycle, business and profit cycle, credit cycle and sentiment cycle were all showing signs of improvement. The shift could create a more supportive backdrop for Indian equities, particularly if earnings momentum sustains and external uncertainties ease.

Four cycles begin to align

1) Economic cycle: Chandan’s view that the economic cycle is turning up is supported by a strong start to FY27. India’s real GDP growth accelerated to 7.8% in Q1 FY27, up from 6.9% a year earlier, while real GVA grew 8.2%. Investment growth rose to 11.9%, household consumption increased 7.1% and exports grew 12%. The data suggests that domestic demand and investment are providing a stronger foundation for the market’s next phase.

2) Business and earnings cycle: The earnings cycle is showing early signs of recovery. Nifty companies reported 18% year-on-year (YoY) profit growth in Q1 FY27, the strongest in 10 quarters. The improvement was also visible beyond the benchmark: excluding oil marketing companies, the broader set of companies recorded 18% sales growth, 15% EBITDA growth and 22% profit growth. Large-cap earnings rose 21%, while mid-cap and small-cap profits grew 23% and 31%, respectively. However, the earnings growth was concentrated, with the top five contributors accounting for 60% of the increase in Nifty profits.

Chandan’s investment approach focuses on identifying companies that can grow profits over the long term, rather than simply tracking short-term movements in share prices.

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3) Credit cycle: The credit cycle is gaining traction across the economy rather than being restricted to one segment. RBI data showed bank credit growth of 18.3% year-on-year as of Aug. 15, 2026. Official data also showed credit to industry growing 20% and credit to services rising 22.9% in July. A sustained pickup in lending would support consumption, capacity expansion and working-capital demand, benefiting banks, NBFCs, capital goods companies and infrastructure-linked businesses.4) Sentiment cycle: The sentiment cycle is beginning to improve after a period of pressure from global uncertainty, oil prices and foreign selling. Chandan pointed to improving flows as an early sign of a sentiment catch-up. Foreign investors had bought more than $10 billion of Indian debt so far in 2026, while in the ongoing September quarter, FIIs have poured in around $4 billion into equities. In August, domestic equity mutual fund inflows rose 19% month-on-month to Rs 29,328 crore while SIP inflows hit a record high of Rs 32,297 crore. The flood of IPOs on Dalal Street is also indicating how the sentiment is turning. This Wednesday saw 6 IPOs opening on the same day, a lineup not seen in the last 3 decades.

Chandan’s framework suggests that an improvement across all four cycles could support wider participation and open up opportunities across market cap categories and sectors.

Together, the four cycles could create a more favourable environment for Indian stocks. But Chandan also cautioned that markets will not have every indicator working in their favour at the same time.

“In any market, you won’t find all the boxes blue,” he said. “There is always some concern or the other is always there. But if you see, the majority of the issues are favouring India.”

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Largecaps offer valuation comfort

Chandan said largecap stocks had reached “very reasonable valuations”. That could give investors a more balanced opportunity set after periods in which market leadership was concentrated in specific pockets.

He also pointed to the market’s ability to manage risks from elevated oil prices. Although the Middle East crisis and oil price volatility remained concerns, India had so far managed the impact by diversifying its sources and passing on some of the increase in oil prices, he said.

El Niño was another risk being monitored. Chandan said rainfall conditions had improved over the preceding months, reservoir levels had held up and the situation did not appear to point to a particularly weak agricultural year.

The combination of improving economic conditions, a recovering credit cycle and better sentiment could support a broadening of market participation. But Chandan’s approach remains focused on businesses that can convert these macro trends into sustainable profit growth.

Looking for tomorrow’s index leaders

Chandan’s megatrend framework is designed to identify companies that could become future market leaders before they are fully recognised by the broader market.

“Rather than going with the flow, investing in megatrends means anticipating the flow,” he said, while contrasting this approach with the way benchmark indices are constructed. According to Chandan, indices tend to look backward: companies are added after they have already grown significantly, while businesses facing a sustained decline leave the index only after the deterioration has become evident.

“Megatrends tries to look at the winners and losers from a forward lens,” he said, focusing on companies that have the potential and capability to become large companies and eventually enter the index.

The process involves identifying a trend, assessing whether a company can benefit from it, evaluating its business model and management, conducting financial due diligence and then examining valuation.

Potential alone is not enough, Chandan said. A company must be a net beneficiary of the trend, possess a business model that can monetise it and have management capable of executing the opportunity. The financial profile also matters because some megatrends require substantial upfront capital expenditure or have long gestation periods.

AI, power and EVs among long-term themes

Chandan’s long-term opportunity set encompasses several themes that he believes are still in the early stages of development.

These include semiconductors, aerospace, defence, physical artificial intelligence and robotics. He also sees opportunities in Indian companies that supply data centres, as well as businesses that can use AI to improve productivity, revenue growth and operational efficiency.

Data centre expansion is also strengthening the case for power-related investments, he said. The growth of data centres, electrification of transport, renewable energy and other forms of energy transition is expected to require additional investment in generation, transmission and distribution.

Power has remained a strong theme for the strategy, Chandan said, with the transition toward renewables and more distributed systems requiring further capital expenditure.

Electric vehicles are another long-term theme. Chandan said the shift from internal-combustion engines to electric vehicles was becoming more visible, particularly in India’s two-wheeler market.

He also identified contract research and manufacturing as an important pharmaceutical opportunity. The US Biosecure Act could encourage international pharmaceutical companies to shift research and development services from China to India, he said. Every 2.5% shift in market share from China to India could represent a $1 billion opportunity, according to his presentation.

Consumption remains a durable trend

Chandan described Indian consumption as one of the strongest and longest-lasting megatrends. As per-capita income rises and households move into higher income categories, discretionary spending is expected to grow faster than the overall consumption basket.

Food and grocery spending may continue to rise, but discretionary consumption could increase at a faster pace. Chandan said this was creating opportunities in areas such as quick commerce, where he expects continued growth over the next few years.

The broader shift in India’s income pyramid is central to this thesis. As more households move into higher income categories, the composition of consumption changes, creating new profit pools for businesses serving discretionary demand.

For Indian stocks, Chandan’s framework points to two simultaneous developments: a near-term improvement in four market cycles and a longer-term rotation of profits toward new industries and business models.

The market outlook, in his view, is therefore not simply about predicting the next index move but about identifying where economic growth, capital expenditure, technology adoption and changing consumer behaviour are likely to create the next generation of corporate winners.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

NEW YORK — Elena Rybakina battled back from a set down to defeat Coco Gauff 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the U.S. Open women’s semifinals Thursday night, setting up a championship clash Saturday against defending champion Aryna Sabalenka between the top two players in women’s tennis.

The victory guarantees Rybakina will overtake Sabalenka to become the new world No. 1 when the rankings update Monday, regardless of how Saturday’s final unfolds, given she had fewer ranking points to defend heading into the tournament than the defending champion.

Gauff, the fourth-seeded American, brought her best tennis early against Rybakina at Arthur Ashe Stadium, breaking serve in the sixth game to claim the opening set 6-3 in front of a roaring crowd that included former first lady Michelle Obama. Gauff showed off an unusually strong serve throughout the early stages of the match, a notable departure from struggles with that shot earlier in her career, while her forehand gave Rybakina little room to work with during the opening set.

Rybakina steadied herself in the second set, capitalizing on some looser play from Gauff to level the match at one set apiece and quiet the Arthur Ashe crowd. In the decisive third set, Rybakina’s power began to take over, and she broke Gauff’s serve to move ahead 5-3. Gauff fought back with a brilliant backhand passing shot to earn her first break point of the final set, converting it to put the set back on serve. Rybakina responded immediately, breaking again in the 10th game to close out the match in 2 hours and 8 minutes.

The match ended somewhat anticlimactically, with Rybakina winning four consecutive points off Gauff’s serve as the American’s earlier adrenaline appeared to fade, closing out the victory when Gauff sent an overhead smash sailing long on the final point.

Rybakina, the No. 2 seed from Kazakhstan, opened 2026 by winning the Australian Open and has continued closing the gap on Sabalenka in the rankings throughout the year, aided in part by a relatively difficult summer stretch for the Belarusian. Rybakina needed only to reach the semifinals in New York to officially unseat Sabalenka, who had held the top ranking for 99 consecutive weeks heading into this year’s tournament.

Saturday’s final will mark the 18th career meeting between Rybakina and Sabalenka, with Sabalenka currently holding a 10-7 edge in their head-to-head series. The two have split recent meetings on the sport’s biggest stages, with Rybakina defeating Sabalenka in this year’s Australian Open final in January, while Sabalenka had previously beaten Rybakina in the 2023 Australian Open final. More recently, Sabalenka has gotten the better of Rybakina in matches at Indian Wells and Miami.

Sabalenka reached Saturday’s final with a comfortable 7-5, 6-2 win over No. 3 seed Jessica Pegula in the day’s first semifinal, extending her U.S. Open winning streak to 20 consecutive matches and securing her third straight appearance in the tournament’s championship match. The two-time defending champion largely matched Pegula through a tightly contested first set before pulling away decisively in the second.

Speaking after her win over Pegula, Sabalenka expressed satisfaction with how she had performed under pressure.

“No complaints,” Sabalenka said. “I’m just super happy that I was able to pull out such tennis.”

Gauff’s run to the semifinals continued a strong 2026 season for the American, who won her first Grand Slam title as a teenager after rallying past Sabalenka in the 2023 U.S. Open final. Since that breakthrough win, however, no player has managed to knock Sabalenka out of the tournament in Flushing Meadows, with both Pegula, in the 2024 final and last year’s semifinals, and now Gauff, in Thursday’s semifinal loss to Rybakina, unable to end that streak themselves.

Saturday’s championship match will pit two of the sport’s most dominant hardcourt players against one another, with the world’s top ranking already effectively decided heading into the match, even though Sabalenka will still be playing to defend the actual U.S. Open trophy she has won each of the past two years. Rybakina will be seeking her third career Grand Slam singles title, adding to her 2022 Wimbledon championship and this year’s Australian Open triumph, were she able to defeat Sabalenka a second time in a major final this season.

For Sabalenka, Saturday offers an opportunity to close out a third consecutive U.S. Open title and reassert her position at the top of the sport following Rybakina’s guaranteed rankings ascent, continuing what has become one of the most closely contested rivalries in the current era of women’s tennis. The two players have now met repeatedly on tennis’s biggest stages over the past several seasons, trading wins in Grand Slam finals and other high-profile tournaments throughout 2025 and 2026.

With Rybakina already assured of the No. 1 ranking regardless of Saturday’s outcome, the primary stakes for the final center squarely on the U.S. Open trophy itself, along with the broader psychological edge that would come with either player extending their recent dominance over the other in the sport’s most closely watched individual rivalry. Saturday’s championship match is set to close out the women’s singles competition at this year’s U.S. Open, capping a tournament that has already produced significant storylines on both the men’s and women’s sides of the draw at Flushing Meadows.

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The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has set the price band for its much-awaited IPO, which will open for subscription on Thursday, September 17, and close on Monday, September 21.

The exchange has fixed the IPO price band at Rs 1,700 to Rs 1,785 per share, with each share carrying a face value of Rs 1. The lot size has been set at eight shares, meaning retail investors will need to invest a minimum of Rs 14,280 to bid for one lot. Further bids will have to be made in multiples of eight shares.

NSE IPO price band details

Retail investors have been allocated 35% of the issue, while 50% has been reserved for eligible institutional bidders (QIBs). The remaining portion will be available to non-institutional investors (NIIs).

At the upper end of the price band, the NSE IPO will be valued at Rs 22,561.57 crore, making it the second-largest IPO in Indian history. At this price, NSE will have a market capitalisation of Rs 4.41 lakh crore. Eligible employees participating in the IPO will receive a discount of Rs 170 per share.

Its selling shareholders in the offer for sale include SBI, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Aranda Investments (Mauritius) Pte. Ltd., MS Strategic Mauritius Ltd., New India Assurance, SBI Capital Markets, Bank of Baroda, Stock Holding Corporation of India, General Insurance Corporation of India and United India Insurance Company.

The IPO is entirely an Offer For Sale (OFS), which means NSE itself will not receive any proceeds from the share sale.

NSE IPO bankers and lead managers

Kotak Capital, JM Financial, Morgan Stanley India, Citigroup, HSBC Securities, JPMorgan India, SBI Capital, Anand Rathi Advisors, Avendus Capital, Axis Capital, DAM Capital, Equirus Capital, HDFC Bank, ICICI Securities, IDBI Capital, IIFL Capital, Motilal Oswal, Nuvama Wealth, Pantomath Capital and 360 ONE WAM are the book running lead managers for the IPO.

When will NSE shares list?

NSE shares will be listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Allotment for eligible shareholders is scheduled to be determined by September 22, while the shares are expected to be credited to the demat accounts of eligible shareholders on September 23.

The shares will list on the bourses on September 24.

NSE IPO size trimmed

Meanwhile, NSE has cut the size of its proposed IPO offer for sale by around 15%, with several shareholders reducing the number of shares they intend to sell, according to the red herring prospectus (RHP) filed on September 10.

The total OFS has been reduced to up to 12.64 crore shares from the 14.89 crore shares proposed in the UDRHP. This represents a reduction of around 2.25 crore shares.

The entire reduction has come from eight sellers. MS Strategic (Mauritius) has reduced its offer by 0.50 crore shares, while Stock Holding Corporation of India has cut its proposed sale by 0.47 crore shares. General Insurance Corporation of India has reduced its offer by 0.45 crore shares, Bank of Baroda by 0.33 crore shares and National Insurance Company by 0.20 crore shares.

Mahagony Limited has lowered its proposed sale by 0.20 crore shares, while Indian Bank has reduced its offer by 0.10 crore shares. Individual shareholder Amit Kumar Lohia has withdrawn from the OFS entirely, removing 25,000 shares from the proposed sale. Together, these eight sellers account for the full 2.25 crore-share reduction in the OFS.

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Aranda Investments (Mauritius) and TA Asia Pacific Acquisitions, however, have kept their proposed sale quantities unchanged.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

Discord users across the United States began reporting widespread access problems early Friday morning, with outage-tracking site Downdetector logging a surge in complaints starting around 12:10 a.m. EDT, primarily centered on voice call connectivity failures.

Downdetector’s official account flagged the surge in a post shortly after the reports began, asking affected users how the disruption was impacting them and directing people to its live outage map for updates. The hashtag “DiscordDown” began circulating on social media as users compared notes on the issue.

According to Sunday Guardian Live’s analysis of the outage data, 68% of reported problems were related to voice calls specifically, followed by 20% involving the mobile and desktop app and 6% involving the website. Users attempting to join voice chats reported calls taking unusually long to connect or failing outright, with the complaints suggesting voice connectivity was the primary issue affecting the platform’s users.

Independent monitoring service Entireweb reported the situation escalating significantly as the morning progressed, with 151 outage reports logged in the preceding 24 hours as of its most recent check, 25 of which had come in within just the past hour. The service recommended affected users take a break and try again later given the elevated volume of active complaints.

Separate tracker IsDown, which specifically monitors Discord’s voice service, recorded a more modest three user reports in the 24 hours leading up to its check just after midnight Eastern time, illustrating how quickly the reported issue appeared to escalate in the hours that followed. One user report captured by IsDown earlier in the week described being stuck on a “waiting to connect” message when attempting to use voice chat, with the same issue affecting friends in different countries simultaneously.

Not every monitoring service reached the same conclusion about the scope of Friday’s disruption. StatusGator characterized Discord as “operational” as of its most recent check at 3:57 a.m. UTC, while still logging 16 user-submitted outage reports over the preceding 24-hour period. Similarly, UptimeRobot’s automated check, run from North America just after 4 a.m. GMT, did not detect any unusual response times or error codes affecting the platform, a pattern of conflicting readings that has periodically characterized Discord outages in the past, given that the company’s official status page has, at times, continued to show the service as fully operational even while independent trackers and user reports pointed to a genuine disruption.

Discord has a well-documented history of voice-specific outages that have not always been immediately reflected on its own official status page. During one previous incident, Downdetector reports spiked to well over 7,500 within a short window, with users reporting server connection issues and voice chat failures displaying an “awaiting endpoint” error message, even as Discord’s status page continued showing the service as operational throughout that disruption. That earlier outage was ultimately traced back to a concurrent issue affecting Google Cloud Platform, the infrastructure provider Discord primarily relies on, with Discord’s own issues clearing up shortly after the underlying Google Cloud disruption was resolved.

Discord, the widely used voice, video and text communication platform originally built around gaming communities but now used broadly for a wide range of online communities, has grown into one of the most heavily trafficked messaging platforms globally, making even relatively brief disruptions to core features like voice chat a significant source of user frustration and social media attention.

For users experiencing ongoing issues Friday, UptimeRobot recommended standard troubleshooting steps, including attempting to access Discord from an alternative browser, device or network, such as a mobile hotspot, disabling any active VPN connection, clearing the device’s DNS cache, and restarting the home router before concluding that a broader platform-wide outage is responsible for the disruption. If Discord loads and functions normally from a different network or device, the underlying issue is more likely tied to a user’s own local internet connection rather than reflecting a genuine service-wide problem.

Given Discord’s function as a primary communication tool for millions of users, including gaming communities, hobbyist groups, professional teams and informal friend circles, disruptions specifically affecting voice chat functionality tend to draw significant and immediate user frustration, given how central real-time voice communication has become to how many people use the platform on a daily basis.

Outage-tracking platforms including Downdetector, Entireweb, StatusGator and IsDown each compile crowdsourced reports from affected users and cross-reference them against automated server checks to help determine whether a genuine, widespread service disruption is underway, as opposed to isolated technical issues affecting only a subset of users. The notably conflicting readings across different monitoring services during Friday’s incident, ranging from Entireweb’s escalating report of 151 complaints to StatusGator’s more modest count and UptimeRobot’s clean automated check, underscore the inherent difficulty in definitively characterizing the scope of a disruption like this one in real time, particularly for issues that may affect certain regions, connection types or specific platform features, such as voice calling, more severely than others.

As of early Friday morning, Discord had not issued a detailed public statement specifically addressing the cause of the reported voice call and connectivity issues. Affected users were advised to continue monitoring both Downdetector’s live outage tracker and Discord’s own official status page for further updates, while the company worked, without formal public acknowledgment as of the time of this report, to address whatever underlying issues were contributing to the voice connectivity problems affecting users across the United States early Friday.

American consumers are facing higher costs as the war in Iran pushes energy prices higher, with U.S. households having spent over $100 billion more this year due to elevated gasoline and diesel prices, an economist says.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told FOX Business that “higher oil prices and energy more broadly” have been the main economic consequence of the Iran war felt by U.S. households.

“The war has added about $115 billion in additional costs through higher gasoline prices, what we pay at the pump; diesel that goes to everything that’s put on a truck from groceries to Amazon packages; and jet fuel. So, if you fly in an airplane, you can pay more because you have to pay for the cost of that fuel,” Zandi said.

“If you add that all up, it’s about $115 billion. And if you divide by the number of households, that’s about $860 per household. So, a typical household is spending $860 more on energy than they otherwise would have if there had been no war.”

AMERICANS FACE THE MOST EXPENSIVE LABOR DAY AT THE GAS PUMP EVER RECORDED

The war’s impact has hit lower- and middle-income American households the hardest. Zandi said that higher-income households have been better able to digest the higher energy costs.

“Folks that are in the top part of the income and wealth distribution, the well-to-do, they’re doing fine. They’ve got a job. They don’t have much in the way of debt. If they have any debt, it’s a mortgage that’s sitting on a very low interest rate, they own a lot of stocks and benefit from the run-up in stock value,” Zandi said.

“For lower- and middle-income Americans, it’s tough, much more difficult. Their incomes on an after-inflation basis because of the war have come to a virtual standstill, and some are actually declining. Those folks, they don’t own much stock, they may not even own a home and they have a fair amount of debt. So, they’re struggling, and the high energy costs — the fact that we’re paying over $4 a gallon — it really matters to those folks,” Zandi said.

NATIONAL AVERAGE PRICE FOR DIESEL HITS NEW RECORD HIGH AMID IRAN CONFLICT

Inflationary pressures have persisted in the economy since the COVID-19 pandemic and the pace of price growth picked up again this year due to the energy shock caused by the Iran war. Zandi noted that households were better able to deal with higher gas prices earlier this year after larger tax refunds, though their effect has diminished over time.

“Some of the ill effects of the Iran war on consumers were mitigated early on in the year because of the tax cuts,” he said. “People got bigger tax refund checks this year than last year because of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. That helped up and through probably May, maybe into June, but those tax cuts are now in the rearview mirror, so households are still stuck paying over $4 a gallon.”

The Iran war has constrained the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz due to the threat of Iranian attacks and sea mines in the main shipping channels through the narrow waterway. While the U.S. Navy has escorted vessels through the choke point and countries bordering the Persian Gulf have utilized alternative means of transporting oil, including pipelines, oil supplies haven’t recovered to their pre-war level.

“The only relief is if the war winds down, at least in the sense that more oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. That’s still very much a bottleneck. Oil tanker traffic is still well, well below what it was before the war started,” he said.

“Ultimately, we’ll figure it out. The oil that doesn’t go through the strait will find other ways to get into the global marketplace, pipelines and other things. And we’ll see more production in the rest of the world because you can make a lot of money now producing because prices are so high,” Zandi explained. 

“That’ll happen, but that takes time. That’s not next week, next month, next quarter, may not even be next year.”

TREASURY YIELDS HOVER NEAR MULTI-YEAR HIGHS AS ENERGY PRICES AND GOVERNMENT DEBT FUEL BOND SELL-OFF

Zandi said that while oil prices would likely start to decline when there’s an indication that supplies are normalizing, he cautioned they’re unlikely to return to pre-war levels in the foreseeable future, in part due to the drawdown of reserves.

“I don’t think they go back to where they were pre-war because, in most scenarios, you still have to worry about the conflict restarting and the strait being shut down again. Insurance companies will demand a higher premium to pay for the risk of insuring tankers that go through the Persian Gulf,” Zandi said.

“It will take some time to restore all the inventory drawdown that has occurred,” he added, noting the moves by the U.S. to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and those by other countries like China and India from their own reserves.

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“That’s helped cushion the blow, but we won’t get back to normal, if that’s the right word, for some time until those inventories are replenished and that could take a while,” Zandi said.

Firms across Europe have been switching from fossil fuels to electricity for their industrial needs, encouraged by subsidies from EU funds.

While that is helping bring down emissions of climate-warming gases, it has also made firms more vulnerable to power cuts.

And in Spain and Portugal that threat was made painfully clear last year.

On both sides of the border, firms are looking for ways to avoid disruption.

“The industrial sector has been one of the first to look at storage systems, since it can’t have its production drop off too abruptly,” says Miguel Matias, founder of the Portuguese energy services company Self Energy, headquartered in the UK.

“A backup for a few hours, or even minutes, might guarantee that machines don’t get damaged,” he says.

And there have been more recent incidents to spur investment.

At the end of January, Storm Kristin toppled thousands of electricity and telecom poles across central Portugal, cutting power and communications to hundreds of thousands of people – some for weeks.

So, companies and other organisations have been taking action.

In Spain, battery storage capacity has risen almost sevenfold since last April, from about 28 MW before the blackout to 193MW in April 2026, according to the grid operator Red Eléctrica.

And much more capacity is planned.

In December, the IDAE, Spain’s Institute for the Diversification and Saving of Energy, awarded €827m in EU funds to 133 energy storage projects totalling 2,400MW. Around 80% of that is battery storage.

The new capacity will be close to 10 times the amount that Red Eléctrica currently registers on the Spanish grid.

It’s all good news for battery suppliers.

“We are seeing not only an increase in demand, but also a clear evolution in customer requirements,” says Alberto Bodegas, from battery storage company Sungrow.

Traditionally, commercial and industrial clients were looking for partial or full backup solutions, Bodegas says.

Today, Bodegas says customers are demanding more advanced capabilities, such as seamless backup, meaning the switch from grid to backup occurs instantaneously and without any noticeable interruption.

This is particularly critical for sensitive environments such as hospitals and data centres.

Delivery times are also crucial for buyers, currently under tight deadlines linked to EU funding programmes. Battery companies are being pressed to meet increasingly shorter delivery dates, Bodegas says.