Alibaba Group not Acquiring Snapdeal: It is confirmed now! Alibaba Group, Chinese e-commerce giant is not buying the Indian e-commerce company Snapdeal and is not in talks to do so. The news is confirmed by a person familiar with the matter on Thursday, dampening talk that an acquisition was in the works.
Earlier there were speculations that both the companies are in talks and Alibaba group cold acquire the Snapdeal. And Alibaba’s acquisition could have given Snapdeal the needed push to deal with the growing competition in the e-commerce segment. But that was all rumours!
Prior to Snapdeal, Alibaba was believed to be in talks with Flipkart for a possible acquisition. It was clear that the deal didn’t work out when Alibaba jumped to talk terms with Snapdeal.
Alibaba group not acquiring Snapdeal: Why there were such speculations?
Snapdeal has partnered with several global marquee investors and individuals such as SoftBank, BlackRock, Temasek, Foxconn, Alibaba, eBay Inc., Premji Invest, Intel Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Ratan Tata, among others. Snapdeal’s major investor, Softbank is owned by Masayoshi Son.
Alibaba is one of the major investors in the company after Softbank and that flamed the speculations of the group acquiring the company after looking at the continuous fall in the company sales and losing ground. In February 2010, Kunal Bahl along with Rohit Bansal started Snapdeal.com. The Indian company has raised over $1.76 billion in 12 funding rounds. However, last festive season was a big hit with most e-commerce giants.
Why Snapdeal is losing its ground in India and why do it need the support from e-retailer giants?
Flipkart had global retailer giant, Walmart backing them with a minor share in the company and Amazon India had a massive support from its parent company. However, Snapdeal is losing its market share due to competition from Paytm.
Alibaba is principally engaged in online and mobile commerce through the offering of products, services and technology that enable merchants, brands and other businesses to transform the way they market, sell and operate in the People’s Republic of China (the PRC or China) and internationally.
