Skip to main content

India’s richest man is ready to take on Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart

Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest man, is ready to take on Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart.

Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio, two subsidiaries of Ambani’s Reliance Industries, said they have soft launched JioMart, their e-commerce venture, in parts of the state of Maharashtra — Mumbai, Kalyan and Thane.

The e-commerce venture, which is being marketed as “Desh Ki Nayi Dukaan” (Hindi for new sore for the country), currently offers a catalog of 50,000 grocery items and promises “free and express delivery.”

In an email to employees, accessed by TechCrunch, the two subsidiaries that are working together on the e-commerce venture, said they plan to scale the service to many parts of India in coming months. A Reliance spokesperson declined to comment.

The soft launch this week comes months after Ambani, who runs Reliance Industries — India’s largest industrial house — had said at a conference that he wants to service tens of millions of retailers and store owners across the country.

If there is anyone in India who is positioned to compete with Amazon and Walmart, it is him. Reliance Retail, which was founded in 2006, is the largest retailer in the country by revenue. It serves more than 3.5 million customers each week through its nearly 10,000 physical stores in more than 6,500 Indian cities and towns.

Reliance Jio is the largest telecom operator in India with more than 350 million subscribers. The 4G-only carrier, which launched commercial operations in the second half of 2016, disrupted the incumbent telecom operation in the country by offering bulk of data and voice calls at little to no charge for an extended period of time.

More to follow…



from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2QByd9h

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bill Gates steps down from Microsoft’s board to focus on philanthropy

In an announcement on Friday, Microsoft revealed that company co-founder Bill Gates has decided to step down from his role on its Board of Directors in order to focus on his philanthropic efforts at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This is Gate’s biggest change to his role at Microsoft since stepping down as company chairman in February 2014. According … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2We90Gu

Uber claims top spot in Indian ride-hailing market

Uber facilitated 14 million rides a week in India last year, the American ride-hailing firm said as it claimed the tentpole position in the key overseas market. In a report  (PDF) published on the sidelines of its quarterly earnings Thursday afternoon , Uber said that it commanded over 50% of the ride-hailing market in India — among some other regions — and was the category leader. The publicly listed company cited its internal estimations for the claim, it said. In comparison, Uber handled 11 million rides a week in India in 2018, a spokesperson told TechCrunch. The revelation is especially interesting, since both Uber and its chief local rival Ola have tended to avoid talks about the number of rides they serve in India. In a 2018 blog post , Ola revealed that its platform “moves over two million people every day.” A spokesperson for the Indian startup, which like Uber counts SoftBank as an investor, declined to reveal the new figures, but issued a statement in which it ...

Epic is probing an annoying Fortnite bug that causes stuck players

Epic Games has acknowledged reports of a frustrating Fortnite bug that is causing some players to become stuck in place, unable to move their character from the spot where it freezes. This same general issue is also causing issues in which players can move but are unable to access their backpack inventory, leaving them without most of their gear. Epic … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2Qqesmx