JioMart, the online groceries delivery platform established under Jio Platforms, will now leverage the power of Facebook's WhatsApp platform to bring local vendors, independent hawkers and small kirana stores online. The move has been announced as a part of the deal signed between Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook and Mukesh Ambani-backed Jio Platforms, which also involves Reliance Retail — a separate arm operated under Reliance Industries. JioMart was announced earlier this year, in January 2020, as part of Jio Platforms' expansion into the e-commerce space in India.
As part of the deal, local vendors and small kirana businesses will be able to register on JioMart, the online groceries delivery platform, and receive seamless orders through WhatsApp. The latter is the ubiquitously preferred messaging and communication service across different segments of internet users, therefore expanding the scope of business for kirana stores that so far largely survived on offline, physical orders. This should lead to JioMart seeing considerable growth as it would bring the convenience of offering to users their favourite, local grocery stores.
In return, the Facebook-owned WhatsApp will gain access to India's final third of internet users, and see an expansion of user base going forward by registering more new users on the platform. This will also see WhatsApp increase its business acumen in India. WhatsApp already offers a solid suite of services in India, including options such as UPI-based payments, text and image search for past messages and more, which should prove handy for businesses to use.
Speaking about the partnership, Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, said in a statement, "All of us at Reliance are humbled by the opportunity to welcome Facebook as our long-term partner in continuing to grow and transform the digital ecosystem of India for the benefit of all Indians. The synergy between Jio and Facebook will help realise Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s ‘Digital India’ Mission with its two ambitious goals — ‘Ease of Living’ and ‘Ease of Doing Business’ – for every single category of Indian people without exception. In the post-Corona era, I am confident of India’s economic recovery and resurgence in the shortest period of time. The partnership will surely make an important contribution to this transformation."
He further added, "Jio Mart, Jio's digital new commerce platform and Whatsapp will empower nearly 3 crore small Indian kirana shops to digitally transact with every customer in their neighbourhood."
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and chief executive of the Facebook group, said upon the announcement, "We are committing to work together on some critical projects that we think are going to open up a lot of opportunities for commerce in India. India is a special place for us. It's home to the largest communities around the world on Facebook and WhatsApp, and there are a lot of talented entrepreneurs, and it's also in the middle of a major digital transformation that's being led by organizations like Jio that over the last four years, have worked to get hundreds of millions of Indians onto the internet."
Facebook, the world's largest social media conglomerate, has picked up a 9.99 percent stake in Jio Platforms, the new technologies arm and the holding company of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, which operates India's largest mobile telecom business right now. The stake was bought by Facebook for $5.7 billion (Rs 43,574 crore), bringing the valuation of Jio Platforms up to $65.95 billion (~Rs 4.62 lac crore). This brings Jio Platforms into an elite list of the five largest public companies of India by market capitalisation value, and also marks the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) in the technology sector of India.
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