Indian payments startup Paytm has hired Alibaba’s head of wholesale business to steer its growth and build a stronger collaboration with the Chinese eCommerce giant.
Bhushan Patil, who is joining Paytm as a new vice president, has been charged with expanding the company’s global market outreach.
“In China, online payments for gas and electricity bill drove adoption of Alipay” and speared growth for Alibaba’s eCommerce business, Patil said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “Paytm is in a similar space to Alibaba, so I can leverage my China experience.”
Patil’s move comes on the heels of Alibaba’s $500 million investment in Paytm’s parent company, One97 Communications, which bought it a 40 percent stake in the company and expanded its strategy to grow its eCommerce business in India.
As part of its expansion strategy, the Noida, India-based company also announced its plan to increase its marketplace seller base from 100,000 to over 500,000. The announcement indicates the company’s move toward partnering with Chinese merchants.
While the Indian eCommerce market, at $16 billion, is minuscule in comparison to China’s gargantuan market that saw sales of over $377 billion just through Alibaba last year, its rapid development of mobile and Internet infrastructure is catching the interest of retail and eCommerce companies.
“Internet adoption in India is similar to China’s seven years ago,” Patil said, speaking of the growth prospects of the Indian market, which is expected to soar to $38 billion by the end of this year. “The fuel for growth is similar.”
“Alibaba is very keen on coming to India in a very big way, particularly in the eCommerce sector,” a senior government official told The Economic Times. “They’re only exploring the way — whether to go on their own or set up shop with someone else.”
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