Alibaba ventures into Indian market, in partnership with Network 18

World’s largest B2B portal Alibaba.com has tied up with India’s largest yellow pages company, Infomedia India (owned by Network 18 Fincap) to officially foray into the lucrative Indian market and cater the needs of 80 lakh small and medium Indian businesses.

Globally, Alibaba has 27 million users across 200 countries, out of which 0.4 million users are situated in India which are mainly trading in textiles, jewellery, auto parts and chemicals. For Alibaba, India is among the top three markets along with US and South-East Asia and represents represents 8% of its total business.

Alibaba connects buyers and sellers globally and earn revenues through online advertising and paid subscriptions from sellers. With this partnership, Alibaba expects to double its Indian membership through a combinations of offline and online models.

Infomedia would provide direct customer support to Alibaba’s Indian users and create awareness about Alibaba’s products to its listed 750,000 businesses through is 650 salespeople.

The venture may prove to be successful as Alibaba has a global credential and a fare reputation for transactions. It also guarantee supplier’s credibility through its verification systems called GoldSupplier pass (available only in Chinese provinces) and TrustPass (for suppliers outside China).

The venture may even gain further strength, if indeed Microsoft takes over Yahoo! as latter holds a 39% stake in Alibaba.com. In such as scenario, Microsoft would be able to use its global clout to establish its business presence.