Alibaba is foraying into the Indian e-commerce market with its first fully owned venture through its subsidiary UC Web.
The company already has a 30.15 per cent stake in Paytm and 3 per cent in Snapdeal, but according to the company, this move will not impact its investments.
“We have Alibaba’s e-commerce gene in us. We are actually trying to start innovative business model related to e-commerce. We are going to launch a new e-commerce product in India this year,” averred Huaiyuan Yang, Vice President, UCWeb Global Business.
Planning to launch in the current fiscal, the venture could have a probable impact on Paytm’s business. Commenting on this, Yang said, “E-commerce is a very vast business. There are various parts of e-commerce business and several products. UC will choose section according to our business. We will partner with the right players and we will not compete with them (Paytm).”
UC Browser has been available in India since 2009. Half of its alleged 1.1 billion registered user downloads come from India and they also claim to have 130 million active users monthly.
