CN Alibaba office

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is boosting its presence in India with a US$177m investment in India’s Paytm E-Commerce.

The funding comes from Alibaba’s Singapore arm with venture firm SAIF Partners to investing US$23m into Paytm’s e-commerce business. The move is seen as Alibaba’s move to take on competitors Amazon and Flipkart of India, which together control 80 per cent of India’s e-commerce market, reports Nikkei Asian Review.

Paytm operates Paytm Mall in India, an online store offerings 68m products from 140,000 sellers, partnering with third-party warehouse providers.