Alibaba Group is planning to launch it’s first fully owned e-commerce business this fiscal in India through its subsidiary UCWeb, a senior company official said on Thursday.
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UCWeb Global Business Vice President Huaiyuan Yang told PTI that the company’s planned foray into e-commerce space will not have an adverse impact on Paytm, in which Alibaba owns 30.15% stake.
Alibaba Group also owns 3% stake in Snapdeal.
“We have Alibaba’s e-commerce gene in us. We are actually trying to start an innovative business model related to e-commerce. We are going to launch a new e-commerce product in India this year,” Yang said on the sidelines of Alibaba Philanthropy forum.
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UCWeb’s UC Browser has been available in India since 2009. It claims to have registered 1.1 billion user downloads worldwide (excluding China) with half of its global installs from India. It also claims to have 130 million monthly active users in the country.
When asked about probable impact of UCWeb’s foray into e-commerce on Paytm’s business, Yang said, “E-commerce is a very vast business. There are various aspects to an e-commerce business and several products. UC will choose sections according to our business. We will partner with the right players and we will not compete with them (Paytm)“.
UCWeb also has plans to start the sale of movie tickets online, he said.