Asia’s Richest Man Outlines His Plan to Take on Amazon in India
- Mukesh Ambani will first target 1.2 million small merchants
- Race to dominate India’s hot e-commerce arena is quickening
A worker uses a forklift to remove a pallet of goods from a storage rack in an aisle at the Amazon Inc. fulfillment center in Bengaluru.
Photographer: Ruhani Kaur/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Reliance Industries Ltd. will roll out its online shopping platform to 1.2 million retailers and store-owners in western India, starting on an ambitious plan to take on Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart on its home turf.
Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, intends to take on the world’s largest retailers by combining his Jio telecom service, mobile devices and a vast physical retail network. A new offline-to-online platform will probably be launched in 12 to 18 months across the country, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the plans aren’t public.