In a very less time, India has become the favorite of all big ecommerce players. We know that recently Alibaba has announced its plan to enter the Indian market. Before this can even happen giants like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, have all settled down with an extremely well flourished establishment but the clash to outrun the others on this tough battleground is on fire. As each one of them would want to grab the majority of stakes as India is a fresh target and the topmost e-commerce ruler spot is still open.
With a Morgan Stanley fund writing down its Flipkart stake by more than a quarter and despite some major concerns that industry valuations may have slightly surpassed the present reality, the remaining ensnaring point is a $25 billion market rising at up to 40% annually that’s still measured virgin territory.
On this issue, Nandan Nilekani, the billionaire co-founder of IT services firm Infosys Ltd and a vigorous startup financier mentioned, “India is the last big thing in e-commerce. Now, both Chinese firms such as Alibaba and American players like Amazon see India’s open market as a huge opportunity”. Whereas, Mahesh Murthy, co-founder of early-stage investor Seedfund said, “India is open compared with Chin. About 50% of India’s Internet economy is made up of Google, Amazon and Facebook. We have an open economy where Indians, Chinese and Americans can all go head-to-head”, he added.
If we see, most of India as a developing country, e-commerce isn’t just an option. It’s often the only option. Nilekani said, “India is mobile-led and often mobile-only, the growth of the Smartphone user base in India outpaces China’s, let alone the US India could have half a billion users in the next five years.” Therefore this online platform is somehow of utmost significance because of the ease it provides. This is another fact which makes the e-commerce fighters even more active to fight for the ruling spot which is softer now but will not remain so in some time. Nilekani brilliantly asked “The ecommerce landscape will grow five or six times in the next few years. Who’s going to capture it?”
