Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba and its financial services subsidiary Ant Financial have made a further investment in Indian mobile commerce network Paytm, raising its stake in the booming business to 40%.
Alibaba is understood to have spent approximately $680 million for a 20% interest in the One97 Communications subsidiary. This follows an earlier deal in Feburary, which saw Anty Financial gain a 25% foothold for $575 million, subsequently reduced to 20% as part of the current investment.
Eric Jing, president of Ant Financial Services Group says: “Ant Financial has worked seamlessly with Paytm in the past few months and our technical teams have developed significant improvements on the user experience for Indian consumers. Ant Financial and Paytm will collaborate to capture mobile payment opportunities in India. We believe that Paytm, as a leader in this field, is best equipped to build a mobile payment ecosystem in the country.”
Paytm has recently crossed 100 million mobile wallet users who carry out over 75 million transactions every month. The company has set its sights on bringing half a billion Indians into the mainstream economy.