Looking for the richest man in India, Xiao Zha wants to do big things.
Editor’s note: This article is from the micro-channel public number “Chi as the network” (ID: passagegroup) , Author: Fu Rao. Original title “India’s richest man” starting a business “, Zuckerberg voted $ 5.7 billion”
On April 22, Facebook added Ambani, India ’s richest man, as a friend, at a cost of $ 5.7 billion.
On the same day, Facebook announced that it invested 5.7 billion US dollars in India ’s largest telecommunications operator Jio Platforms, accounting for 9.99% of the shares, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries (Reliance Industries). The founder of Reliance Industries is India ’s richest man, Ambani.
Zhixiang was informed that Jio is currently heavily in debt and has sought financing from many Chinese companies, all of which were rejected. After marrying Facebook, Reliance Industries is very likely to bring disruptive changes to the Indian Internet ecosystem.
On April 22, Zuckerberg said on Facebook, “India has the largest user community of Facebook and WhatsApp. At the same time, there are many talented entrepreneurs. The cooperation of the two companies will help Indians and Indian companies. Create new opportunities. “
US $ 5.7 billion, ranking second in Facebook ’s outbound investment, after acquiring WhatsApp for US $ 22 billion in 2014. At the same time, this is the largest amount of foreign direct investment received by Indian technology companies.
What’s unexpected is that the statements of Zuckerberg and Ambani both stated that the focus of cooperation between the two parties is on e-commerce.
Copy “WeChat” ecosystem
In India, the only national app is Whatsapp. As of July 2019, WhatsApp has 400 million users in India and Facebook has about 300 million users in India.
Because of losing the Chinese market, Facebook cannot afford to lose India. The investment of 5.7 billion US dollars is to consolidate the status of the social giant in India. Two months ago, Facebook just launched the payment function in India, based on WhatsApp.
According to a report by the Indian Economic Times on April 16, the two companies are developing a multi-functional super app similar to WeChat. Judging from the statement of the cooperation between the two companies and the launch of WhatsApp Pay, Facebook intends to establish a WeChat-like business ecosystem in India.
Reliance Industries ’statement unveiled the tip of the iceberg. Jio Platforms,Reliance Retail Limited (Reliance Retail Limited) and WhatsApp reached a commercial cooperation agreement to promote Reliance Retail ’s small business platform JioMart on WhatsApp. JioMart’s goal is to bring small businesses and kirana (couple stores) to their own platforms, helping them achieve online O2O sales.
Facebook chief revenue officer David Fischer and Facebook India vice president and managing director Ajit Mohan said that in the next cooperation, it will be possible to integrate JioMart and WhatsApp. The former is an e-commerce service jointly invested by Reliance Retail, India ’s largest chain store, and Jio, the largest telecommunications operator, while the latter has more than 400 million subscribers in India.
Facebook said in a statement: “We can connect consumers and businesses through a seamless mobile experience and ultimately facilitate product purchases.” Jio also said, “These companies will work closely to ensure that consumers can use WhatsApp makes a seamless transaction with JioMart, such as viewing the nearest kirana husband and wife shop through WhatsApp and purchasing their products and services. “
Zuckerberg also said that Facebook will connect with Jio to help 60 million small businesses build online sales platforms.
Jio = China Mobile + Alibaba?
Most people in India can afford mobile data, and indeed it should be attributed to Jio.
Since the official launch of 4G service on September 5, 2016, it only took 170 days for Jio to gain 100 million users. The killer is free. At the beginning of Jio’s listing, it was announced to be free for 4 months, and all Internet use was free.
As of the end of 2019, there were more than 388 million users in India, including 300 million monthly active users. There are approximately 635 million Internet users in India, and Jio accounts for more than half.
That’s why Facebook likes Jio.
As Jio ’s parent company, Reliance Industries has intensively invested in the Internet industry in the past few years and has penetrated many aspects of Indian public life. After spending US $ 50 billion to burn out India ’s largest mobile operator, India ’s budding venture capital firms have also paid more for cheap traffic, but Ambani is obviously not willing to make wedding dresses for others.
He never concealed his e-commerce ambitions. Using the traffic entrance of operator Jio, in addition to the traditional business of Reliance Industries, to create an Internet empire, this is the new dream of India’s richest man.
The cornerstones of this empire are Jio and JioMart.
In January 2020, JioMart went online, which initially only covered Mumbai. Consumers can order through JioMart’s husband and wife shop and receive free delivery services.
Ambani said, “WhatsApp has been included in the 23 official languages of India.” And promised, “In the near future, JioMart and WhatsApp will help 30 million small shops and couples shops to digitize and establish connections with customers. , Gain growth. Customers will be able to see the nearest merchants on their mobile phones and place orders to buy various daily necessities. “
Once this plan is realized, Ambani will have full control of the Indian retail industry. Compared with China, the main force of the Indian retail industry is these 30 million husband and wife stores.
Subverter
This collaboration is not the first time Facebook has made a strong foray into India. As early as 2014, Facebook proposed an Internet connection service called “Free Basics” in India, which aims to help Indians in remote areas to access the Internet. However, due to the question of its neutrality, it was regulated by India Telecom in 2016. Institutional prohibition.
For a long time, Indian regulators have been skeptical that foreign companies dominate the market. Recently, WhatsApp and the Indian government have also disputed over information control issues. The government asked WhatsApp to change its encryption method to track the source of the message, but was rejected by WhatsApp. At the same time, regulators have repeatedly shelved WhatsApp’s request to provide payment services to its Indian users. Nearly two years later, WhatsApp only received permission from NCPI and the Bank of India to formally launch WhatsApp Pay in India in February 2020.
As an industrialist and public figure, Ambani once urged regulators to adopt the “India first” strategy, which is beneficial to local Indian companies but hinders the development of foreign companies such as Facebook and Amazon. He had stated that the large amount of data collected by these companies should remain in India and be controlled by Indians.
In a joint interview, Jio ’s strategic director Anshuman Thakur and Facebook ’s head of India Ajit Mohan said that the two companies have different views on some issues, but this does not prevent them from Cooperation in other fields.
TechCrunch analysis, Facebook’s joint Jio move may also be related to the rapid rise of Tiktok.
For more than a decade, the Indian Internet market has been monopolized by Facebook and Google. But in recent years, TikTok has broken the monopoly of the two giants and gained more than 250 million users in India. Jio has established consumer-oriented services, but rarelyThe core products of the two American giants compete directly. The joint with Jio will help Facebook to further develop the market in India.
In the past year, Facebook has actively invested in India. In June 2019, Facebook invested $ 25 million in social e-commerce startup Meesho, and in February 2020, it invested about $ 15 million in education technology startup Unacademy. In earlier 2014, Facebook also acquired Little Eye Labs, an Android software performance analysis platform, for between $ 10 million and $ 15 million.
(Source: TechCrunch, Entrackr, News18, WSJ, New York Times, medianamas)