Shout out to Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon; Japanese giant Rakuten is coming to storm Indian e-commerce chapter

Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, which opened its development centre in Bengaluru in 2014, has now opened a business office in the startup hub.

Apparently, the Japanese behemoth doesn’t want to lose out on India’s e-commerce growth story and wants to do an Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce player which has investments in India and now planning a direct entry.

After the government allowed 100 per cent FDI in India’s e-commerce, bigwigs across the world want to have a share of the pie.

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Reportedly, Rakuten, owner of Viber, has already poached mid-level managers from Flipkart and Amazon.

"India is a vibrant growth market and a great source of talent and ideas for us at Rakuten. We are always interested in new global opportunities for growth but we don't have any comments on developments in India at this time," the Tokyo-based firm's spokesperson said in an email to ET.

It may be an uphill task for Rakuten to cement its place in the Indian market as Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal dominate Indian ecommerce.
Meanwhile, Rakuten has sales of over $5 billion and is interested in financial services, digital content and travel businesses.

It made a tyranny of investments in the US as it bought Buy.com, Ebates Inc, Viber, and made significant investments in Lyft and Pinterest.
Apart from Japan, Rakuten also operates in the US, UK, Brazil, Spain, Malaysia and Indonesia.

As per Goldman Sachs, India's ecommerce market is expected to triple to $68.8 billion by fiscal year 2020.

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