Reliance Poised To Be The Top E-commerce Player: Report
In accordance with Bernstein Research, the Reliance Group is the best-positioned player in the $150 billion Indian e-commerce market, ahead of Amazon and Walmart, because it owns the largest retail store network, dominant telecom operations, and strong digital media.
According to the report, India is becoming a market with three major players: Amazon, Walmart, and Reliance.
"Given the challenges of distribution and India's proclivity to'skip a generation' in most technologies, we believe the Indian e-commerce market will be different." "From the start, an integrated model (offline plus online plus prime), strong distribution capability, and a cost advantage (over online players) are required."
According to a news agency, Reliance Industries' telecom arm Jio has 430 million mobile subscribers, its retail arm has 18,300 retail stores in India, and its digital mix is growing by 17-18%.
"It's a disruptive playbook -- integrate offline + online + prime makes it the strongest competitor to Amazon/Walmart," Bernstein said.
Reliance is now the third largest e-commerce company in India, with $5.7 billion in sales.
"We believe Reliance Retail/Jio is the most strategically placed player in the world's largest and fastest-growing e-commerce market." The benefits of its retail network, mobile network, digital ecosystem, and 'home field advantage' in a notoriously complex regulatory and operating environment mean that it will likely claim the lion's share of the $150 billion-plus e-commerce marketplace in the long run', it added.
As stated in the report, India's large number of affluent households makes it a very appealing market.
India also has one of the lowest 4G data prices and the highest per capita mobile data consumption in the world, according to the report.