China’s Alibaba refuses more funding for India’s Paytm

By Song Lin Source:Global Times Published: 2019/7/9 21:58:41



Photo: IC





Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding's refusal of funding further to Indian e-commerce platform Paytm Mall should not be over interpreted as it is an understandable adjustment of investment strategy, analysts told the Global Times Tuesday.

Alibaba reportedly refused to offer any further funding for Paytm Mall, one of its largest investments in India, due to the latter's unsatisfying performance. 

Alibaba owns a 46-percent stake in Paytm Mall, US-based financial news site investorplace.com reported on July 3, citing a report by Forrester Inc. Without a proper logistics network and overly relying on heavy discounting, the biggest e-commerce platform in India has seen massive losses recently.

Insufficient consumption ability is the primary issue in the Indian market, given the example of the smartphone sector, in which the luxury iPhone could not catch up with Chinese brand Xiaomi's market share, Liu Dingding, a Beijing-based industry analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

According to the World Bank, the per capita gross national income of India was $2,020 in 2018, about 20 percent of that of China.

In addition, the sluggish global economy has put more pressure on Indian people's economic situation, which further dragged down the vitality of Indian market, Liu said. 

The common denominator in some Chinese enterprises' overseas investments is an overreliance on their domestic success, which may hit barriers overseas, Li Chao, an analyst from iResearch Consulting Group, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

He noted that most Chinese business giants have built their empires on sound domestic infrastructure, such as advanced transportation systems and a well-developed logistics sector.

Most countries in Southeast Asia have neither, Li said, so Chinese enterprises cannot just transplant their models overseas without properly designing products catering to local customers' needs and local development situations.

Moreover, it takes time to let the reward of investments to kick in, especially in countries that lack adequate support facilities, Li said.

Paytm Mall, dubbed as the Indian version of Alibaba's Tmall, has raised $645 million from Alibaba and Softbank in the recent two years, added to Warren Buffett's $400 million investment in September 2018. However, it still could not retain most of its customers when its heavy discounts are removed, said the report.



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