As many as 26 top e-commerce companies, including Zepto, BigBasket and Zomato, have given an undertaking that their platforms are free from misleading claims and unfair trade practices which constitute 'dark patterns', the government said on Thursday.
Reliance Industries (RIL) annual general meeting (AGM) had several stunning announcements. RIL looks to list Jio Platforms (JPL) by June 2026. It targets doubling of FY22 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) (Rs 1.25 trillion; $14.6 billion) by FY27 implying 14.7 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the FY22 levels.
The Bengaluru-based quick-commerce application (app) Zepto is making big strides. According to Sensor Tower data, it surpassed JioMart in November, securing the second position among grocery apps in terms of monthly usage. This shift, identified by BofA Global Research, closely monitoring key segments of the app business, has pushed JioMart to third place in the grocery space.
Meta Platforms Inc, the parent company of WhatsApp, will partner with Reliance JioMart for a service where WhatsApp users can buy groceries on the messaging platform from the Indian retail firm. Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer (CEO) of Meta Platforms, said in a Facebook post, "[I am] Excited to launch our partnership with JioMart in India. "This is our first-ever end-to-end shopping experience on WhatsApp--people can now buy groceries from JioMart right in a chat." "Business messaging is an area with real momentum and chat-based experiences like this will be the go-to way people and businesses communicate in the years to come," he said in an announcement coinciding with the annual general Meeting (AGM) of Reliance Industries the parent company of JioMart.
Reliance Retail's digital commerce platform JioMart will morph into an e-marketplace offering multiple brands - from electronics, consumer durables, fashion and lifestyle, beauty, home, kitchen, and grocery - as it girds up to take on the likes of Amazon and Flipkart ahead of the festival season sales. India's largest retailer was in the process of onboarding third-party sellers these past few months, further increasing its selection across categories multifold. Its website and application offers general merchandise as well.
Ordering groceries, vegetables and daily essentials is just a WhatsApp away as billionaire Mukesh Ambani's e-commerce platform JioMart taps into the popular messaging app to scale up online business in its fight for dominance in the giant Indian retail market with Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart. Ambani's twin children, Akash and Isha gave a preview of the ordering at Meta's second edition of the Fuel for India event on Wednesday. A new 'tap and chat' option allows users to order groceries through WhatsApp.
Amazon will invest more than Rs 2,000 crore (about $233 million) in India in 2025 as it strengthens its logistics and safety standards, said the ecommerce company on Thursday.
Flipkart Group Chief Executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy on Monday said the firm was advancing preparations for a potential initial public offering (IPO) in India, which included shifting its holding company to India from Singapore. Speaking at an internal town hall, Krishnamurthy said the company's leadership structure is strengthening and that the steps toward relocating Flipkart's legal base to India are progressing as planned, according to people familiar with the matter.
While JioMart is doing 250,000 orders per day, BigBasket and Amazon pantry are doing 220,000 and 150,000 orders, respectively.
Mukesh Ambani-owned RIL's JioMart is set to launch a slew of new products including financial services, electronics to airline tickets to take on the competition from upcoming rivals like the Tata Super app and other established players including PayTM, Amazon and Flipkart. This comes at a time when RIL's e-commerce revenues are set to grow by 35 per cent to $15 billion within four years and its core retail revenue is expected to grow at the same pace to $44 billion, as per a forecast by Goldman Sachs. "The Tata vs JioMart war will be the next big corporate battle to watch. "While Tata has an upper hand like in-house products and brands, RIL has the backing of global biggies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft," said head of a rating firm asking not to be quoted.
In its highest ever reduction in seller fees, ecommerce giant Amazon India has introduced zero referral charges on over 12 million products on its platform that are priced below Rs 300. The move is aimed at boosting seller growth on Amazon.in and supporting hundreds of thousands small businesses across the country.
Udaan, India's largest business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce company, has received approval from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for its internal corporate restructuring plan, according to sources. By consolidating into a single entity, the restructuring will enhance Udaan's agility and pave the way for various financing options, including the ability to pursue an initial public offering (IPO) in India by 2026, according to people familiar with the matter.
Manish Tiwary plans to take up a new role at another firm.
Reliance Industries Ltd invested over $125 billion in the last ten years as it undertook massive expansion in hydrocarbon and telecom businesses, a report said, estimating that the conglomerate's investments in the next three years would be in relatively less capex-heavy retail and upstream new energy. Reliance is coming out of a series of long and intensive capex cycles (hydrocarbons and telecom).
'With this revamp the anonymous journey of the user will begin wherein he will not have to sign in every time he accesses the app.'
Flipkart, the e-commerce company owned by Walmart, is intensifying its efforts to achieve profitability as it is eyeing a valuation of approximately $60 billion at the time of its initial public offering (IPO), now planned in 2025-2026, instead of this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The firm might consider listing in the US or any other geography, including India. The company, which counts the likes of Amazon and Reliance's JioMart among its competitors in India's burgeoning e-commerce market, had also contemplated launching an IPO in 2022-2023.
Reliance Industries' (RIL's) retail arm, Reliance Retail, is now valued at nearly twice the amount of its decades-old and lucrative oil-to-chemical (O2C) division. Bernstein's latest report on the conglomerate projects a valuation of $112 billion for its retail business, dwarfing the $57 billion valuation of its O2C division. In addition, the research firm valued Jio Platforms, the company's telecom arm, at $77 billion and the renewable energy business at $17 billion.
Global investment management firm Bernstein has pegged the enterprise valuation of Reliance Industries (RIL)'s 85 per cent stake in Reliance Retail at $111 billion, while valuing the Mukesh Ambani-led company's 66.5 per cent stake in telecom and digital platform arm Reliance Jio at $88 billion. Reliance Industries had earlier planned to list both its subsidiaries to unlock value for its shareholders but hadn't fixed any timeline. The report said that Reliance Retail had raised $6 billion by diluting a 10.1 per cent stake, while Jio Platforms raised $20 billion from investors by selling 33 per cent in 2020.
'The competition between the two is definitely going to be of great interest to the Indian market.'
Since September, Reliance Retail has raised money from Silver Lake, KKR, Mubadala, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority , GIC, TPG, General Atlantic and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund in a divestment programme that mirrored sister Jio Platforms a few months earlier.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries has started a limited test use of WhatsApp to connect customers to grocery stores, days after Facebook decided to invest USD 5.7 billion in digital assets controlled by the company. JioMart, an e-commerce venture of Reliance Retail, "has already started interacting with customers on WhatsApp for grocery orders" in Navi Mumbai, Thane and Kalyan, Credit Suisse said in a report.
Reliance Industries invested Rs 30,000 crore (around $3.76 billion) in its retail business and added 2,500 stores, taking the total store count to 15,196 in FY22. Besides, Reliance Retail added 11.1 million square feet of warehousing space during the year, nearly doubling the warehousing space to 22.7 million square feet, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) said in the annual report for FY22. In FY22, Reliance Retail added over 1.50 lakh jobs, taking its total headcount to 3.61 lakh.
While Jio MF will undoubtedly grow in size, it will have to cross multiple hurdles even to emerge as the market leader, observes Debashis Basu.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's children -- Isha, Akash and Anant -- on Monday were appointed on the board of his energy-to-technology conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd, in what is seen as a clear path of succession planning at India's most valuable company.
Jiomart B2B is the latest among organised supply-chain companies to bite the bullet, shutting down its warehouses, and asking its employees to leave. Why are companies finding it difficult to sustain the supply-chain business? Experts point out that gross margins in supplying fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) are very low.
Credit Suisse said if the deal fructifies, then this will bring together the largest offline and online retailers in India.
The writing has been on the wall for some time and it showed up prominently during the festival-season sales last year, when Meesho toppled Amazon to become the second-largest player in order share. During the sales season, 60 per cent of the orders Meesho received were from tier-4 cities and beyond. According to a report by consulting firm Redseer, festival-season sales last year were driven primarily by tier-2 and tier-3 cities, with 64 per cent of the shoppers coming from those.
Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd, run by India's richest man Mukesh Ambani, on Tuesday raised Rs 5,512.50 crore from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), taking the total fundraise to Rs 37,710 crore in less than four weeks.
Tata Group chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran on Thursday said the group's recently launched super app Neu is on an open architecture and it will host non-group brands as well. The Tatas finally launched its super app Tata Neu on April 7, after piloting it for months, but the group chairman claimed there was no delay in the commercial launch. Stating that the app has received an overwhelming response in the past seven days of going live, Chandrasekaran said the app is on an open architecture and will host products and services from non-Tata group companies.
Jiophone Next will be available from Diwali for Rs 6,499 per unit for customers wanting to buy the smartphone without financing option, Jio and Google said in a joint statement on Friday. Jio is also giving a finance option for the Jiophone Next where users can make an upfront payment of Rs 1,999 and pay the rest in easy monthly instalments spread across 18-24 months, the company said in a statement. "This is the first time that a phone in the entry-level category is getting a financing option.
US media reports that Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, could be the latest technology giant to downsize its workforce have triggered trepidation among its 300-400 employees in India, according to people familiar with the matter. "We have not heard much about the impact (of downsizing) on India. "It's a wait-and-watch situation. Certainly, there is uncertainty," said a source.
Campa is set to take on its competition, which pushed it out of the aerated drinks business in the late 1990s, but this time with a new owner - Reliance Industries. Campa's entry comes at a time when aerated drinks as a category is already saturated. But experts say this could give rise to competition in the segment, eventually causing the space to grow.
Reliance Retail has bought a 25.8 per cent stake in Dunzo, India's leading quick commerce player, for $200 million (around Rs 1,488 crore) as it looks to expand its presence in online grocery delivery business. Dunzo has raised $240 million (about Rs 1,787 crore) in its latest funding round that was led by Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) - the retail arm of Reliance Industries, the two firms said in a statement. Existing investors Lightbox, Lightrock, 3L Capital and Alteria Capital also participated in the funding round.
Reliance Jio, together with partners, has tested its 5G solutions in India, successfully demonstrating speeds of over 1 GBPS, and its 'Made in India' solution is "globally competitive", RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani said on Thursday. Ambani also exuded confidence that the company will be the first to launch full-fledged 5G services in the country. Jio is not just working to make India '2G-mukt' (free from 2G) but also '5G-yukt' (5G empowered), he added. Jio's engineers have developed a 100 per cent home-grown and comprehensive 5G solution that is fully cloud native, software defined, and digitally managed.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries Ltd's retail arm on Thursday raised Rs 9,555 crore from Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, taking total fundraise in the last two months to Rs 47,265 crore. PIF will take a 2.04 per cent stake in Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), the Indian firm said in a statement. The investment values RRVL, the retail arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, at a pre-money equity value of Rs 4.587 lakh crore.
Colgate-Palmolive India (Colgate India) on Wednesday met distributors' body to sort out the issue of price parity between the traditional trade and organised distributors, which are present offline as well as online. These companies include Jiomart, Booker, Udaan and Elastic Run. Colgate India's meeting with distributors comes after the traditional channel stopped supplying its Colgate MaxFresh range of products in Maharashtra.
Mukesh Ambani's Reliance group has struck acquisition deals worth $4.2 billion with a dozen companies in just two years to expand its retail business. The latest purchase was of a majority stake in Justdial for Rs 3,497 crore. Elaborating on his acquisition strategy a few weeks ago during the AGM, Ambani stated that one of the key planks would be to acquire businesses that enhanced Reliance's offerings and experiences to customers and that they would be both physical and digital.
The country's largest retailer Reliance Industries on Monday announced that it will enter the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) business this year as part of its expansion plan. Addressing the 45th AGM of Reliance Industries on Monday, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) Director Isha Ambani said: "This year, we will launch our FMCG goods business". The objective of this business will be to develop and deliver products and solve every Indian's daily needs, with high-quality products at affordable pricing, she said while addressing Reliance Industries' annual general meeting.
Udaan - India's largest business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce company - has laid off about 180 employees, or 4-5 per cent of its workforce of 4,000, in a move to drive cost efficiency, revealed sources. They said the layoffs have happened across various department functions. The layoffs have happened at a time when the Bengaluru-based firm is trying to turn into a publicly listed entity in 18-24 months.
At the annual general meeting of Reliance Industries earlier this week, Isha Ambani, director at Reliance Retail Ventures, announced that the company is foraying into the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) space. But analysts say that only time will tell if this will lead to a disruption in India's FMCG market. While Reliance Retail's initial strategy is to take its own brands, which it currently sells at its own supermarkets and hypermarkets, to general trade, it is also looking at acquisitions.
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