【英语财经】阿里巴巴投资印度同行Snapdeal India’s Snapdeal steps up expansion

Snapdeal, one of the largest ecommerce marketplaces in India, has raised $500m from investors led by China’s Alibaba, Taiwan’s Foxconn, and Japan’s SoftBank, as it steps up its expansion.

The fundraising round has valued Snapdeal, which was founded in 2010 by Kunal Bahl — an ardent Alibaba admirer, who describes his company as an Indian version of the Chinese online behemoth — at roughly $5bn, people familiar with the transaction say.

Mr Bahl said the fundraising was “a significant endorsement of Snapdeal’s strategy”.

As a secondary part of the transaction, eBay, one of Snapdeal’s earliest foreign investors, has sold down part of its holding in the group.

The US company said, however, it would retain a “significant portion” of its original investment and would plough the profits from the sale into its own business, including its India platform, which lags behind rivals.

Snapdeal has been vying for dominance of India’s fast-growing ecommerce market against local rival Flipkart, which was valued at $11bn in its latest fundraising round, and Amazon, which is investing $2bn in India. According to the company, 150,000 vendors sell more than 12m products on its site. Snapdeal forecasts that it will sell $3.bn-worth of goods this year, based on current projections.

Ecommerce is gaining rapid traction with India’s young, tech-savvy, time-pressed population, enabled by the rapid proliferation of low-cost smartphone handsets, while its traditional retail industry has been stunted due to lack of suitable real estate and logistical constraints.

“This investment in Snapdeal enhances our exposure to India’s burgeoning ecommerce industry,” said

Alibaba. “Snapdeal has a strong presence in mobile commerce and it fits our strategy of investing in innovative companies that are transforming the way people transact.”

At the start of this year, Alibaba invested $500m in the owner of

Paytm, an Indian mobile payments

platform.

For Mr Bahl, securing an investment from Alibaba — a company he has

previously described as being a

“mentor” to him — must be personally satisfying, though people familiar with the fundraising round say the Chinese company’s investment is relatively small.

Additional reporting by James Crabtree in Mumbai and Charles Clover in Beijing

印度最大电商平台之一Snapdeal从以中国的阿里巴巴(Alibaba)、台湾的富士康(Foxconn)和日本的软银(SoftBank)为首的投资者筹得5亿美元，用于加速扩张。

知情人士表示，此轮融资使Snapdeal的估值达到大约50亿美元。Snapdeal成立于2010年，其创始人库纳尔?巴尔(Kunal Bahl)是阿里巴巴的狂热崇拜者，他把自己的公司描述为这家中国电商巨头的印度版。

巴尔表示，此次筹资表明“Snapdeal的战略获得了重大的认可”。作为这笔交易的次要部分，Snapdeal最早的外国投资者之一eBay减持了在该集团所持股份。

然而，这家美国公司表示，将保留“很大一部分”初始投资，并把减持所斩获的利润投入自身业务，包括其落后于竞争对手的印度平台。

在印度快速发展的电商市场上，Snapdeal一直在与国内对手Flipkart以及亚马逊(Amazon)争夺主导地位。Flipkart在最近一轮融资时获得110亿美元的估值。亚马逊正向印度投资20亿美元。Snapdeal表示，15万商家在其平台上出售逾1200万种商品。Snapdeal预测称，根据当前推测，今年平台交易额将达到30亿美元。

电子商务正在迅速受到印度精通技术、时间紧张的年轻人的青睐，原因在于，一方面低价智能手机获得快速普及，另一方面缺乏合适的营业地点加上物流约束阻碍了传统零售业的正常发展。

“这次入股Snapdeal，使我们加大了对生机勃勃的印度电商业的投入，”阿里巴巴表示。“Snapdeal是一家强大的移动电商企业，它契合我们对改变人们交易方式的创新型公司进行投资的战略。”

今年初，阿里巴巴对印度移动支付平台Paytm的母公司投资了5亿美元。

对巴尔而言，获得被他此前称为“导师”的阿里巴巴的投资，必定令他产生成就感，尽管了解此轮融资的知情人士表示，阿里巴巴的投资额相对较小。

詹姆斯?克拉布特里(James Crabtree)孟买、查尔斯?克洛弗(Charles Clover)北京补充报道

译者/邢嵬