Last week, Reliance unveiled its next big offering. JioMart, which was launched in Mumbai, is Jio’s long anticipated e-commerce venture and is expected to disrupt the status quo in market dominated by heavyweights like Flipkart and Amazon. For now, JioMart is selling groceries through thousands of kirana stores on its platforms, a model known as online-to-offline commerce and popularised by China’s Alibaba.
Jio’s march into new sectors at break-neck speed is enabled by picking up strategic bets in start-ups that have given it access to new technologies and proven systems. Jio itself (until 2015) was Infotel Broadband Services, a firm Reliance had acquired for its telecom licence in 22 cities. Through the years, Jio has picked up majority and near-majority stakes in 16 start-ups. (See the box below)
Choosiest acquisitions powering Jio ecosystem
Fynd's machine learning tech will power JioMart product-listings, curated from real-time inventory in neighborhood stores
The conversational AI start-up will someday allow JioMart customers to order simply by speaking into the phone
Rebranded JioSaavn; marks Jio's headfirst entry into music-streaming, one of the hotest internet sectors
Last-mile delivery partner for Jio e-commerce services
Vernacular voice intelligence chat-bot
Oct 2018: Den Networks, Hathway Cables
Backbone of Reliance JioFibre and pay-to-use TV offering
Investment size: $600 mn (estimated)
The US-based telecom solutions company is Jio's lab for IoT and 5G development
Reliance's play in Edutech, where it is still testing the waters
Take for instance its most recent bet on Fynd, in which it picked 87 per cent for Rs 300 crore. Fynd is a tech-enabled e-commerce venture that acts as a bridge between physical retail stores and online shoppers. Using proprietary technology, it maps inventory at stores for real-time sale on Fynd, thereby helping retailers to clear stocks, and also shoppers to buy from stores in their vicinity.
Combine this with Haptik, an AI chat-bot Reliance acquired early last year, Jio has the capability to manage sales, send discount notification, and target users with precision.
“Onboarding of Kiranas have started long back. Basically, they are given a PoS device which is digitally-enabled. It carries out billing, accounting, inventory management. Through this, those who could not accept digital payments earlier, can do so now,” said a source aware of Jio’s strategy.
“Store owners can also create their own discount codes and target users. Brands can also send specific discount offers, say on a specific pack of biscuits, to stores to pass on to the customers,” said this person.
For deliveries, JioMart will use Grab-a-Grub, a last-mile logistics start-up, Jio had acquired in March 2019.
While more detail will emerge when the dedicated JioMart application is launched, but Jio has created a large network of internet services to keep the user hooked. The biggest is JioSaavn, which has over 100 million monthly active users. It also has stakes in Balaji Telefilms and Eros International, which power Jio Cinema and JioTV, two online video streaming applications.
In payments, the company has its own UPI application Jio Money as well as Jio Payments Bank.
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