Interview with Indian electric trader Snapdeal CEO

Summary: Tencent Science and Technology and Snapdeal founder and CEO Kunal Bahl (right) The Indian electricity market is showing the characteristics of China's early electric market, and constantly attract capital entry. In May this year, the Indian Electric Business website Snapdeal just financing 100 million dollars, its colleague Flipkart is tight

Tencent Technology and Snapdeal founder and CEO Kunal Bahl (right) photo

India's electricity market is showing the characteristics of China's early electric market, and constantly attract capital entry. In May this year, the Indian Electric Business website Snapdeal just financing 100 million dollars, its peers Flipkart followed, in July to obtain 1 billion U.S. dollars investment.

The following day, the US e-commerce giant Amazon quickly announced that it would add 2 billion of dollars in the Indian market investment. Meanwhile, fashion retailer Jabong and ebay, the global E-commerce giant, are also competing for the Indian E-commerce market.

Recently, Indian media Economic Times reported that Alibaba, which has just listed, is preparing to open up India's online consumer market and is preparing to work with Snapdeal. Only so far, the two sides have not reached a specific agreement.

Tencent Technology has visited India's "Silicon Valley" Bangalore, and interviewed Snapdeal founder and CEO Kunal Bahl, Kunal Bahl to Tencent technology, said about Alibaba and Snapdeal cooperation is outside speculation.

Preferred Alibaba model

Kunal Bahl to China's power companies Alibaba and Beijing East both praised the addition, that both had a very successful IPO this year. From the future trend of development, the next Alibaba and Beijing East will come from the same size of the Indian electricity market.

Comparing Alibaba and Jingdong, Kunal Bahl that Alibaba's model is more suitable for India, because India, like China, is a populous country, but the Indian market is characterized by a relatively dispersed population, not as concentrated as the Chinese mouth.

"We learn a lot from Alibaba. "Kunal Bahl to Tencent Technology, Snapdeal model to a certain extent similar to the day cat, Alibaba does not do express business, but with partners do rookie network, Snapdeal is the case."

This should also be Flipkart and Snapdeal financing scale is so big disparity. Flipkart and Snapdeal have chosen different development paths when India's infrastructure lags far behind China and may seriously constrain the development of India's electricity business.

Flipkart this year to obtain 1 billion U.S. dollars of financing, will build more warehousing logistics, Snapdeal is learning Alibaba model, only financing 100 million U.S. dollars, in the logistics and express areas will rely more on partners.

Flipkart and Snapdeal differ from each other today, and in a few years the gap will emerge.

In the United States to lay out the electricity market in India, Alibaba and Jingdong also closely watching AIA this burgeoning market. Kunal Bahl Frankly, recently with Alibaba overseas director and Beijing East Vice President Xu met.

Xu, the president of Huawei Electric Power Company, joined Jing Dong in April this year and is now the head of overseas business in Beijing. At present, whether for Alibaba or Beijing east, hand Snapdeal are entering India, the emerging electricity market is a good choice.

A Chinese entrepreneur said to Tencent that the CEO of the two companies Flipkart and Snapdeal could feel that Kunal Bahl was a strong man with a strong handshake, whether it was CEO Liu of Jingdong Group (Weibo) or the chairman of Alibaba's board, Jack Ma (Weibo), Also very strong, but Ma Yun's business intervention is not much, from the character look, Snapdeal more likely with Ali cooperation.

Snapdeal considers IPO in 2 years

Since 2010, Snapdeal has financed 202 million of billions of dollars, including ebay, Intel, Bessemer Venture and other investors. Snapdeal is the same as the Flipkart of India's electricity business website.

Snapdeal business model is similar to Alibaba, employees look for potential sellers and then approve them to join Snapdeal. Kunal Bahl has said that the ideal business should be established with Snapdeal "long-term relationship", preferably exclusive cooperation.

After approving the seller, Snapdeal will deal with subsequent matters, including trading, delivery and logistics. The goods are delivered to the user in the box of the Snapdeal brand. Snapdeal is solely responsible for mailing and packaging, and the user does not contract with the seller.

Snapdeal offers more than 5 million products from more than 30,000 companies in India. The site is trading at more than 1 billion dollars a year. Snapdeal is currently considering listing in the next 1.5 to 2 years.

Kunal Bahl often goes out, and its important task is to attract outside investors to prepare for the IPO. "We are the leader in India's fastest-growing sector, and those who miss the opportunity to invest in Alibaba will not miss the opportunities in India," he said. ”

Snapdeal has reason enough to be confident because, according to Gartner, a market research firm, smartphone sales in India Rose 166.8% in the fourth quarter of 2013, the fastest growing market for smartphone sales in the quarter.

Even so, India's smartphone users still do not exceed 200 million, compared to its 1.2 billion population gap is clear, in the future as the price of smart machines, more people will be mobile phone rather than PC into the field of online shopping, which gave the Indian electric business development laid a foundation.

From last year to now, Snapdeal has grown from less than 10% to more than 50% of customers who have logged on to their sites via mobile phones. Kunal Bahl to Tencent Technology, China's electricity market and India's electricity market there are many differences, there are many similarities.

"China's more developed offline retailing means that India's electricity dealers will be even bigger than China." "Kunal Bahl said that in China, the electricity quotient occupies 9% of the retail market, in India only 0.5%." Future electricity dealers may account for 20% of India's retail market.

Kunal Bahl revealed that 1 million of notebooks sold every quarter, and 20 million were sold. Future Indian handset shopping will be the main channel, this year India market overall growth 100%,snapdeal will reach 300%.

The current Amazon and ebay giants are vigorously developing the Indian market, which poses a threat to India's local power companies. But the story of Alibaba, the Chinese counterpart, and the BoE's triumph over giants inspire Indian peers.

Kunal Bahl says Amazon is a good company that is successful in the US market but not necessarily successful in the non-US market, and Snapdeal not afraid to compete with Amazon's multinational giants.