What Alibaba Is Getting With Its $575 Million Investment In Paytm
Monday, January 12, 2015
What is Paytm?
Paytm is India’s largest mobile wallet service. Its marketplace has about 15,000 merchants and has 25 million registered users. It has 10 million items listed on its marketplace.
Paytm’s mobile wallet is similar to Alipay Wallet, the mobile application of Alibaba’s e-payment service. Users canload cash into an online wallet which can then be used to pay for utility bills, hailing a taxi, among other things. Paytm has 20 million users on its wallet, accounting for more than 60% of mobile wallet users in India. It counts Uber, Expedia and Airbnb among its customers.
What Alibaba Brings to the Table
A deal with Alibaba will allow Indian consumers to shop on Alibaba sites by making payments through Paytm, while Chinese customers can use Alipay to buy from merchants selling on Paytm’s marketplace. Sellers on Alibaba’s sites would also be able to list their wares for sale on Paytm, and vice versa.
Until now, Indian consumers could make a purchase on an Alibaba site only through its international online marketplace AliExpress using a global credit card. Indian sellers have only been selling on Alibaba’s marketplace for businesses, Alibaba.com.
Source: Wall Street Journal (link opens in a new window)
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