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

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

In the fight between information technology, fintech and e-commerce firms in India and Google and Facebook, the global giants seem to be winning hands down. It is becoming a matter of survival for these sectoral ones, as one-stop solutions such as business listings, travel bookings, money transfers and financial services are available on both platforms and these firms rely on Google and Facebook to promote their services.

Google has in the past two years systematically got into a host of sectors and businesses. Starting from listings where it competes with firms such as Just Dial and Zomato. Google Tez competes with mobile wallets such as Paytm. And, most recently, Google Flights has taken on MakeMyTrip, Yatra and others in the travel sites segment. Facebook is launching its own wallet via WhatsApp Pay. It also has its own e-commerce arm and plans to bring more services.

According to experts, Google has been placing its sponsored flights unit prominently on a search result page, pushing down travel sites such as MakeMyTrip, Cleartrip and Yatra in favour of Google’s own specialised search service, Flights. Players in other sectors have raised similar issues.

Photo courtesy of Ava Systems.