India 2nd largest market; forms 10% of users: Alibaba.com

New Delhi, Sept 3 (UNI) Alibaba.com, China's biggest business-to -business website, today said India has become its second largest international market after the US with 5,40,000 registered users.

''India is now our second largest international market after the US, and members from the country make up close to 10 per cent of all registered users on our English-language marketplace,'' The website, which connects small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with buyers and sellers globally, added over one lakh users from India in the second quarter alone, representing a sequential growth rate of 26 per cent.

Gauging the importance of the Indian market, Alibaba.com had launched a dedicated India channel last year, which was its first country-specific channel.

The India channel caters specifically to local suppliers and provides an easy-to-use and efficient platform for international buyers to source from India.

The company has also launched 'Export-to-China' service in August 2008 to enable Indian SMEs to sell direct to China's growing number of buyers. It provides Indian businesses with a Chinese-language online storefront on Alibaba.com's China marketplace, which has an active community of nearly 27 million buyers and suppliers.

Alibaba targets India

Interesting piece over the WSJ/Hindustan Times MINT site about Alibaba's ambitions for India. Brian Wong is quoted as saying that they currently have 340,000 users in India and expect to double that figure by the end of 2008. However, he told Indian journalists:

“Depending on the response, we will decide on the opening of our offices or acquisitions in India. However, we don’t have any immediate plans of the kind,” Wong said.Hmm. Sounds a bit tentative doesn't it? He also noted:

“Around 60% of the overall IPO funds will be used for strategic acquisitions and business development globally, as also for acquisition of technologies,” he said.

We wait with bated breath. There ain't the makings of a plan worth US$17 billion (today's market cap) in those quotes.

Update: Interesting that no sooner have I read this than I find another household name, and arguably the kings of global sourcing, looking to double its activity in India. Fons points to a piece about Li & Fung which currently does 6% of its business in India.

Alibaba to expand in India

eBay India gets a serious competition - China based Alibaba.com is set to expand aggressively in India.

Alibaba recently raised $1.7 billion via IPO and plans to use ~60% of the fund raised for strategic acquisitions and global expansion.

Alibaba India currently has 340,000 suppliers and is looking to double the number by end of ‘08.

As far as the market is concerned, the Indian e-commerce market is pegged to touch Rs. 9210 crore by end of 2008 and Alibaba is looking for a bigger share of the pie.

eBay India has done fairly well till now and the site receives 2.5 million unique visitors and 30 million page views per month. eBay’s strategy, now is to target the long tail of sellers.Apart from launching TV ads, eBay India recently opened up it’s site for graphical ads for advertisers and has launched online coupons that can be redeemed.

It’d be interesting to see startups (which focus on local deals) like offersforshoppers (which is undergoing site revamp) and mkhoj play in this market.