Alibaba, China’s biggest e commerce platform, just announced a 56 % increase in the third quarter revenue, shutting down the trade analysts who were all saying that the e commerce platform’s revenues are slowing down. Alibaba saw its shares double up from its original value based on the back of the strong sales system it has been following.
In an attempt at showing the world that it is here to stay, Alibaba just made a host of really interesting investments. Online food delivery platform, Zomato Media Pvt., is going to receive a whopping $ 200 million from Alibaba on the basis of a stock exchange format. This move proves the fact that Alibaba is ready to expand its interests into other areas as well.
InfoEdge, a 45% stake holder in Alibaba, has decided to divest 6.66% for $ 50 million in Zomato either directly or through its wholly owned subsidiary, Naukri Internet Services Pvt Ltd. This would value the Gurgaon-headquartered Zomato at around $ 760 million. The Jack Ma led Alibaba has signalled a strong interest in increasing its hold on the e commerce front.
At the moment, Alibaba is already a leading investor in online payments facilitator platform, Paytm. Apart from professing an interest in investing in Zomato, the Jack Ma led Alibaba led a $ 300 million investment round in online grocer, BigBasket. India’s online retail grocery platform is already quite huge and stands at a valuation of $ 900 million, with BigBasket making up for around $ 700 million of the total.
Through this funding, BigBasket aims at squashing its competitors (Flipkart Online Services Pvt. and Grofers.) The company will deploy the funds into building farmer networks, warehouses and delivery infrastructure with a goal to penetrate deeper into the more than two dozen cities it currently operates in.
On the other hand, Zomata has one major food delivery platform as its rival, Swiggy. Through this round of investment from Alibaba, Zomata firmly places itself at the higher end of the spectrum and has a valuation that far exceeds the valuation of Swiggy. Alibaba is expected to own around 26% stake in Zomato after the $200 million sale via primary and second transactions. InfoEdge’s stake would come down to 31%.
