Reliance’s move into e-commerce set to shake up big Indian mkt

FE Team | Published: May 06, 2019 01:48:37

MUMBAI, May 05 (Business): Reliance Industries, controlled by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani, is progressing on its plans to launch an e-commerce venture that would compete with online giants Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart.
The oil-focused conglomerate - which reported annual revenue for the financial year until the end of March 2019 of $87 billion - has diversified interests ranging from telecoms to real estate. Its planned entry into the e-commerce space is being closely watched, given the huge impact it would have on the industry, analysts and business leaders say.
"It's going to be a game-changer in India's online retail industry," says Anthony Dsouza, the managing director of Mespack, a manufacturing company based in Mumbai. "Reliance already has a huge footprint across India in other sectors and e-commerce development is highly important as it tries to compete."
Mr Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries, in November said that his firm was working on "creating the world's largest online-to-offline new commerce platform".
At this stage, there is still little in the way of exact details known on the new e-commerce platform and when it will open for business. But in January, Mr Ambani said its companies Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio Infocomm would jointly launch an e-commerce platform, starting in the western Indian state of Gujarat, benefiting some 1.2 million small retailers and shopkeepers by enabling them to sell their products online. The business model is similar to that of Alibaba in which local offline merchants team up with an online marketplace.
Reliance Industries declined to comment on its planned e-commerce venture.