Entering China to setup a business is tough, and some Chinese companies can also experience the same difficulties when entering neighbor India.
Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba has closed four enterprise e-commerce platform offices in India.
According to reports in Indian local media, the company is adjusting its operating model in the country and it intends to soon directly enter the Indian e-commerce market. The Chinese e-commerce group is seeking investment opportunities in India, including potential acquisitions of logistics company and additional investment in Paytm.
Alibaba's official spokesperson told local media that the group will enhance its distributor sales network in India and better serve the small- and medium-sized enterprise users by using resources and channels of distributors. At present, Alibaba has 4.5 million registered users in India and the company plans to increase the number to ten million within the next few years.
In March 2016, the Indian government announced plans to open its e-commerce market to foreign capital and allowed foreign companies to implement 100% direct investment into platform-type e-commerce companies in India.
The latest reports from the Confederation of Indian Industry and Deloitte stated that India's e-commerce market scale was about USD16 billion in 2015 and it might reach over USD100 billion by 2020.