New Delhi: Jack Ma, the founder of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, said on Wednesday that he was inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s passionate speech on doing business in India and is looking forward to invest more funds in the country.
“We will invest more in India, work with Indian entrepreneurs and technology companies,” the 50-year-old billionaire said.
Alibaba is the world’s biggest market place and it recently created history by raising a record $25 billion through its initial public offering (IPO). It controls 80% of e-commerce in China, but in India, its four-year old business-to-business start-up has a small pie in a market dominated by home-grown companies such as Flipkart and Snapdeal.
Now, the company is looking to expand its wings in India, which is home to the world’s third-largest internet user base. According to consulting firm Technopak, the size of the domestic e-tailing industry is forecast to expand to $32 billion by 2020 from $2.3 billion now.
There has been speculation that Ma may be interested in talking to Snapdeal about his India plans. Japan’s SoftBank, which owns nearly one third stake in Alibaba, is also the biggest single investor in Snapdeal.
Snapdeal co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl had earlier said it wants to replicate Alibaba’s model in India.
Alibaba already has on its site a large number of small Indian businesses and currently Indian suppliers rank second after Chinese suppliers even though Alibaba’s site was not designed for Indians, Ma said.
He added that more than 400,000 Chinese consumers buy things from India and spices, chocolates and tea from the country have been in great demand in China. India has more great products they can sell through our platform to China, he added.
Ma said there was huge scope for “mutual engagement” in technology between India and China and that it could “change (the) lives” of many small businesses.
“I was a teacher earlier and the Internet changed my life. Right now is a wonderful time for businesses in India and China to work together,” he said.
His whirlwind 48-hour-trip comes in the wake of other visits by top e-commerce figures such as Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon.
Amazon, which has a marketplace model in India, and Alibaba, which sources from India, are locked in fierce competition globally.
(With AFP inputs)