Japanese investment and internet giant SoftBank’s bets on Indian e-commerce companies may be losing some shine but the company is still bullish on the opportunities here.
While Snapdeal’s growth has slowed down, taxi hailing firm Ola is loosing ground to Uber, while real estate player Housing.com has its own problems, said Masayoshi Son, founder, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank, on Tuesday.
India holds great opportunity in the e-commerce business and the time is right to stay invested in this market, he added.
“Snapdeal is the Alibaba of India of India with 90 per cent growth year-on-year,” Son said. However, Snapdeal’s growth has come down from 301 per cent in 2014. According to recent industry reports, Amazon has pipped Snapdeal to become the second largest e-commerce player in India after Flipkart.
Similarly, Ola, in which SoftBank has pumped in about $800 million, has also seen its market share fall from the 80 per cent it held in 2014.
However, its arch rival Uber recently mentioned that it has gained market share, from 4 per cent in 2015 to 40 per cent in January this year.
More Jack Mas Though the growth of SoftBank’s portfolio companies has been on the decline, Son said emerging markets like India and Japan have the potential to create many more Jack Ma-like entrepreneurs.
Jack Ma is the founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba that has surpassed the world’s largest retailer Walmart in terms of sales.
“India is going to make dramatic growth in e-commerce. People have questioned my investment decisions in the Indian market but they will get the answers now,” he added while talking about SoftBank’s first quarter results.
SoftBank has invested over $2 billion in the Indian internet space over the past two years. Early this year, at the Startup India event, it said it plans to invest $10 billion in India over the decade.
Son lauded the performance of his Indian investments, specifically e-commerce ventures such as Snapdeal, Ola and OYO, and added that the companies have performed extremely well.
Unit level growth OYO has achieved profitability at the unit level and grown 15 times over the past year, and Ola has been able to overtake global competitor Uber in India, he pointed out. He also praised Uber for its ability to disrupt the taxi market and create aggressive competition in India.
“Ritesh, founder of OYO, is just 22 and doesn’t own any inventory (hotel).
“But with the help of mobile technology he has been able to create an exciting company in the Indian market,” Son said.
On the growth of Snapdeal, Son said the repeat purchase rates of the Delhi-based company has increased and that it is investing heavily in supply chain and logistics to grow faster than its competitors.
Snapdeal has invested $300 million over the past year to strengthen its logistics and supply chain capabilities and develop innovations at each leg of the delivery cycle.
A recent report by PWC and RedSeer consulting said Snapdeal’s delivery time promise is the shortest across India with an average faster than Amazon by at least one to one-and-a-half days across metros and tier II and III cities.
Wider lead The lead is even wider with Flipkart, which trails Snapdeal by two to two-and-a-half days in big and small cities, the report added.
Son, Japan’s second richest person with net worth of $14.1 billion, also said he personally is quite excited about the renewable and clean-tech space in India and that the investment bank will invest heavily in that space in the coming months.
SB Energy, a joint venture between SoftBank Group, Foxconn and Bharti Enterprises, has already won a 350 MW solar power project in Andhra Pradesh.