Alibaba to launch its first India office in Mumbai

One of the largest e-commerce companies of the world - Alibaba - will soon set up its first India office in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The office will come up at Platina, Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC).

Alibaba is a preferred platform for small Indian businesses to source industrial goods from China and for vendors to sell products on a global scale. This new move is being viewed as an indication that Alibaba founder Jack Ma is interested in stepping up investment in the country to ride the growing e-commerce market.

Till now, Alibaba has also invested in Indian e-commerce company Snapdeal, and mobile payments service platform Paytm.

"Given the kind of merchant network they have, India is definitely a potential market for them. There needs to be significant investment from Alibaba because Amazon is on a high and though Flipkart and Snapdeal are on a low, they've invested significant money in the delivery network," says Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of Third Eyesight, a consultancy for e-commerce firms to Business Standard.

Girish Shah, a director at The Wadhwa Group that owns Platina building, confirmed the development. He added that Alibaba will pay a rent of Rs 275 a sq ft monthly, which is about Rs 1 crore per month.