NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, May 7, 2015

As per the PwC report, the ecommerce sector in India is expected to grow by 34% to $22 Bn in 2015 as compared to last year. Realizing the same Jack Ma led ecommerce firm Alibaba, aims at capturing the greater pie of growing ecommerce space in India. The Chinese ecommerce firm has plans to acquire firms that can help improve its customer experience as well as expand its range of products and services.

Through its marketplace AliExpress, Alibaba has entered into a strategic tie-up with Indian mobile wallet company Paytm. As reported, the Chinese ecommerce giant will list 100 Mn stock-keeping-units (SKU) on Paytm by this month.

Reports suggests that in October last year, Alibaba had pitched this business plan before Paytm to start a cross-platform business in India. Following which, Paytm is now ready to list Alibaba’s SKUs to help Alibaba get a higher chunk of the Indian mcommerce market.

Commenting on this development the company officials said, “AliExpress has a lot of sellers and this tie up will allow Chinese sellers to sell in India. The group has more than 1 Bn SKUs just for its international markets.”