Mukesh Ambani To Take On Amazon And Flipkart, Announcing JioMart

While Flipkart and Amazon are spending billions to get their share in the Indian retail market as well as reel from the recent regulatory hurdles, they now have to face a new challenge: the richest man in Asia, Mukesh Abani.

His Reliance Industries has two subsidiaries, Reliance Jio and Reliance Retail, saying they have soft-launched e-commerce venture JioMart, which will work closely with nearby stores in some parts of the state of Maharashtra, including Thane, Kalyan, and Navi Mumbai.

JioMart is now offering 50,000 grocery items with a promise of free and express delivery. In an email to users, Reliance Retail and Reliance Jio said they plan to broaden the service coverage to other parts of the country in the coming months. The pair also urge Jio users to sign up to JioMart to have access to introductory offers. A spokesperson from Reliance refused to share further details.

The soft launch comes months after Mukesh Ambani expressed his wish to service tens of millions of retailers as well as store owners around India. Mukesh Ambani seems like the perfect rival to go against Walmart and Amazon. He founded Reliance Retail in 2006, which is now the largest retailer in India by revenue. Reliance Retail serves over 3.5 million customers per week who come to its almost 10,000 offline stores covering over 6,500 cities and towns in the country.

Meanwhile, Reliance Jio is India’s second-largest telecom provider with over 360 million subscribers. Reliance Jio launched its commercial operations in 2016, offering a lot of data and voice calls with a really low cost for extended time periods.

In January, Ambani said during his speech that there needs to be a new movement to fight data colonization. He added that if India wants to succeed in such a data-driven revolution, the control as well as ownership of Indian users’ data need to go back to India, meaning Indian wealth goes back to Indian.

Right now, e-commerce still makes up a very small proportion of India’s total retail sales. It’s estimated that the Indian retail market will grow to $188 billion from $79 billion in the next four years, as reported by research company Technopak Advisors.

According to Amazon India’s Amit Agarwal, one important thing to remember is that e-commerce accounts for only less than 3 percent in India’s total retail consumption.

To attract Indians to use their services Flipkart and Amazon have entered new businesses and expanded their offerings. They have both started selling groceries in recent quarters while working on food retail as well. Amazon has acquired stakes in several retailers in the country, which include Future Coupons, More, and Shopper’s Stop.

On the other hand, Flipkart has made investments in logistics startups, like Ninjacart and ShadowFax. Amazon India was in talks with Ninjacart too, to buy some stakes in the company, as revealed by people familiar with this matter.

Recently, executives at Reliance Jio have reached out to store owners around India to showcase their point-of-sale machines as well as convince them to join their new venture, JioMart.

As of December 2019, Mukesh Ambani was ranked as the richest man in Asia and the 10th richest in the world. He was born on April 19, 1957, in Aden, Yemen. In 1958, after a brief time living in Yemen, Ambani moved back to India with his father, where his father started a trading business focusing on textiles and spices. As he grew up, his father's business and the family situation improved.

After receiving a BE degree in the University of Mumbai, Ambani enrolled in Stanford University but then withdrew to help his father build Reliance Industries Limited, which is now the most valuable company in India by market value.  In 1985, Mukesh Ambani got married to Nita Ambani, they have two sons and a daughter. Mukesh Ambani daughter is Isha Ambani, one son is Anant Ambani and the other Mukesh Ambani son is Akash Ambani.

As one of the richest men in the world, he has his own car collection. Mukesh Ambani cars include various expensive vehicles, such as the Mercedes Maybach 660 Guard (Rs 4 crore), Mercedes Maybach 62 (5.15 crore), and BMW 760 Li (Rs 8.5 crore).