(Bloomberg) -- Follow Bloomberg on LINE messenger for all the business news and analysis you need.Alphabet Inc.’s Google is considering acquiring a stake in Vodafone Group Plc’s struggling Indian business, the Financial Times reported, joining Facebook Inc. in investing in the world’s fastest-growing mobile arena.Google may take a stake of about 5% in Vodafone Idea, a partnership between the U.K. telecom carrier and the Aditya Birla Group, though the deliberations are at a very early state, the FT cited people familiar with the matter as saying.Any deal would come weeks after Facebook paid $5.7 billion for a slice of digital assets controlled by Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man. The deal was a landmark investment followed in successive days by major influxes of capital into India’s tech industry led by private equity firms.Spokespeople from Vodafone and Vodafone Idea declined to comment. Google itself has big ambitions for India, a country with a huge first-time internet user population that serves as a test-bed for innovations in smartphone technology.Facebook’s alliance with Ambani’s Reliance inserted a powerful new competitor into a crowded Indian internet industry already contested by Google, Walmart Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and SoftBank Group Corp.-backed local outfit Paytm. But none of them have the reach of WhatsApp, the nation’s most popular communications platform.India has been a critical component of Google’s Next Billion Users initiative, its attempt to rope in hundreds of millions of users as they come on the internet in emerging markets like India. It’s targeted users in the market for products as varied as train station Wi-Fi, maps and digital payments. Vodafone’s Indian telecom unit is struggling following a $4 billion demand for back fees in addition to more than $14 billion of debt. The wireless operator, formed by the merger of Vodafone Group’s local unit and billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Idea Cellular Ltd., hasn’t reported a quarterly profit since announcing the deal in 2017, and is headed toward insolvency in the absence of any relief from the government, Birla warned in December.India’s top court recently sided with the government and ordered that the full amount of back fees be paid within three months. When the companies dithered and filed pleas, the Supreme Court threatened to initiate contempt proceedings for non-compliance.(Updated with context throughout, comment from Vodafone)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

When it comes to where millionaires live in America, the rich keep getting richer.Market research firm Phoenix Marketing International notes that although the total number of millionaire households rose for the 11th straight year in 2019, the gains were disproportionately seen in states that already had more than their fair share of millionaires."While the total number of high-net-worth households grew, these increases were largely seen in the wealthiest states, reinforcing the broader ongoing wealth-gap issues the country faces," says Carl Uttaro, VP of financial services research at Phoenix MI. How Many Millionaires Are in the U.S.?Phoenix MI is tracking the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, which could make for a very different landscape going forward. But last year, at least, the good times continued to roll. Indeed, a record 6.71% (or 8,386,508 out of 125,018,808 total U.S. households) can now claim millionaire status. That's up from 6.21% in 2018 and just 5.81% in 2017.Note well that to be considered a millionaire by the standards of wealth research, a household must have investable assets of $1 million or more, excluding the value of real estate, employer-sponsored retirement plans and business partnerships, among other select assets.Although California and New York have a great deal of millionaires in terms of raw numbers, they don't have the highest concentrations of rich households. It turns out there are numerous states with higher percentages of well-off households, several of which probably will surprise you.And don't forget that between living costs and taxes, a million dollars goes much further in some states than others.Here's a look at the millionaire rankings for all 50 states (plus the District of Columbia), based on the percentage of millionaire households in each. Just for good measure, we're also providing important tax and cost-of-living information. SEE ALSO: The Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio: Latest Buffett Stock Rankings

Walmart (NYSE: WMT) shoppers can now browse pre-owned apparel when they visit the retailer's e-commerce site. "We are absolutely seeing this as an opportunity to support a bigger portion of our customers' closets," a Walmart executive told CNBC. Walmart's e-commerce business was a standout performer in its last quarterly report.

The number of deaths from the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 rose above 353,000 on Wednesday, as the World Health Organization said the Americas are at the center of the pandemic following surges in infections in Brazil, Peru, Chile and others in the past few days.

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Among the Dow Jones stocks, Apple and Microsoft are among the top stocks to buy and watch in May 2020.

Most of the seasonal workers hired to help meet Amazon’s e-commerce demand during the coronavirus pandemic will have the option to stay on full-time starting in June.

CVS Health Corp said on Thursday it would open more COVID-19 testing sites at some of its pharmacy drive-thru locations, completing the last leg of the drugstore chain's planned 1,000 sites across more than 30 U.S. states. Health authorities have been emphasizing the need to expand testing capacity as the United States attempts to recover from the respiratory illness that has killed over 100,000 people in the country, according to a Reuters tally. CVS and other U.S. retailers including Walgreens Boots Alliance, Walmart Inc and Target Corp have pledged to provide space at their parking lots for such drive-through sites to help ramp up testing.

Walmart said this week that the clothing reseller will offer secondhand garments via its website. The giant retailer will take a cut of the revenue.

As the biggest retailer in the US, Walmart is also one of the country’s largest sellers of clothing, much of it low-cost basics it peddles at its nearly 5,000 brick-and-mortar stores. But for some time the company has also been trying to make a name for itself selling more design-driven items, especially online.

Both retailers saw surging sales volumes as social distancing spiked. But Dollar General's business stood out in a few key ways.

When it comes to the discussion of major retailers, Target (NYSE: TGT) sometimes becomes an afterthought. Particularly with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, retail analysts have tended to focus on Target's principal competitors, Walmart, Costco, and Amazon. This probably helped Target stock over the past few months as a run on consumer staples helped to drive revenue increases.

Post coronavirus it's all about location. Location, Location.

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Walmart will add used clothing, as well as a number of new brands, to its online clothing lineup through a partnership with ThredUp.

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 821 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC The 13F filings show the funds' and investors' portfolio positions as of March 31st, near the height of the coronavirus market crash. In this article, we look at what those funds think […]

Restrictions on sales of non-essential items during the COVID-19 lockdown hurt the two e-commerce giants in India.

Retail businesses around the country have opened their doors again as many states and cities lifted the lockdown restrictions that were imposed during the coronavirus outbreak.

In this episode of Motley Fool Money, Chris Hill chats with Motley Fool analysts Emily Flippen and Ron Gross about the latest news from Wall Street. They talk about the work-from-home culture and the changes it brings.