After becoming the largest e-commerce player in China, Alibaba has finally found a partner in India’s possibly the world’s next largest e-commerce market.

 

As part of a US$500 million funding round, Foxconn, Taiwan’s high-tech manufacturing that is known for producing iphones, and China’s e-commerce giant, Alibaba, have invested in Snapdeal alongside an existing investor, Softbank, according to sources.

 

The Wall Street Journal first reported in June that Alibaba and Foxconn were discussing ways to jointly invest US$500 million in Snapdeal at around a US$5 billion valuation. Softbank, Snapdeal’s largest shareholder, has already sunk US$627 million into the firm last fall, alongside investors such as BlackRock, eBay, Bessemer Ventures and Indian venture capital firms including Nexus Venture partners and Kalaari Capital.

 

Since the Snapdeal was founded in 2010 by Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl, the firm an unknown company to a large, popular e-commerce company that sells a large range of products, including cameras, jeans, toys, video games, and books, putting it in direct competition with Amazon and another major Indian e-commerce company, called Flipkart, which is valued at around US$15 billion now.

 

Snapdeal’s approach to India’s e-commerce market is very similar to how Alibaba approached China’s market, mainly by creating its own ecoysystem.

 

Snaldeal has acquired many companies to give it a fast boost in the market, including a company called FreeCharge, which is a popular service e in India that lets people add money to prepaid phone plans and their tv plans. The firm also bought RupeePower, a website that allows people compare credit cards and other loans.

 

Alibaba clearly made the investment to give it an edge and strong lead in possibly one of the largest e-commerce markets in the world, India. Alibaba’s interest in India probably derives from the fact that India’s is the second most populous country in the world, and one day will be the largest. And unlike China, it has a young workforce, with more than two thirds of its population under 35, making it ten years younger than America according to a report from Goldman Sachs.