Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail Set To Beat Amazon In Asia
The corona pandemic might have caused most of us to stay at home and do just about nothing, but Mukesh Ambani, one of the wealthiest people in Asia has been very busy. He has been looking to expand his online presence by going on a shopping spree.
Since the latter part of last year, he has been working hard to raise funding and build an online retail empire that might even rival Amazon in the region. The brands that have sparked his interest are Urban Legend (online furniture), Zivame (Ladies Lingerie), and Netmeds (Online Medicine). These brands are leaders in their respective industries, and the talks are still highly confidential, so very few details are currently available.
These brands will go a long way to establishing a significant foothold in the local Asian market for the business tycoon; online retail market has been in the crosshairs for some time already as it represents more than a billion consumers in a growth market. Mukesh is reportedly looking to beat the local rivals and online giants like Amazon to the finish line by creating an online service provider.
With traditional retail outlets having suffered one of the worst periods in history with the COVID-19 pandemic, online shopping has seen enormous growth as many have had to start shopping online for all their requirements. With this in mind, he has released investment plans for Reliance Retail, his brainchild, to continue to build the online platform for his empire.
He has already started by selling almost 35% of Jio platforms to his partners Facebook and Google, and this has primed his new online retail portal to become the number one retail services company in the local market. The future looks exceptionally bright for this man and his great ideas with the acquisitions of outlets like Urban Legend, approximately US$30 million, Zivame almost US$160 million, and Netmeds at about US$120 million. This will mark a new beginning for these brands as they become even more cemented in the local market and will also have a significant impact on the global market.
Reliance Retail is not just going on a shopping spree for the market share, but they have also shown the benefit to their shareholders, who have enjoyed a 41% gain in share price since the beginning of 2020. This will only serve to hasten the growth that was started in 2017.
They are already delivering to more than 200 locations by the JioMart shopping portal which has seen massive expansion during the corona crisis.
It seems that although we might have been on lockdown some people, certainly Mukesh Ambani has been very busy growing his organisation to make our lives even more convenient.
