SoftBank investments have kept Amazon at bay: Masayoshi Son
BENGALURU: SoftBank Group Corp chairman Masayoshi Son claimed that the Japanese firm’s investments in the global e-commerce market have been successful in keeping the world’s largest online retailer Amazon.com Inc at bay, and pointed to the recent success of two of the Japanese investor’s biggest bets in India, Flipkart and Paytm, market leaders in their sectors.
In a post-earnings conference call with analysts late on Monday, Son said both Flipkart and Paytm were market leaders by a wide margin in their sectors, citing market share data from various research reports. According to SoftBank, Flipkart has a 60% share in India’s e-commerce market, while Paytm commands a 58% share of India’s digital payments business.
“E-commerce as a business model is now becoming the essential business model for our soci ety,” Son said. “Amazon is still making a loss in e-commerce.”
“Flipkart, India’s number one e-tailer has 60% in the domestic e-commerce market and is bigger than Amazon India. It is very difficult to see someone who is bigger than Amazon. I believe, after China in terms of size, India should be next, and in a market with such huge potential Flipkart has 60% market share which is a good start. In China, Alipay has been successful as a business model and Alipay and SoftBank support Paytm. Again, thanks to the Alibaba Group, we are the second-largest shareholder in Paytm,” added Son.
The latest earnings report from SoftBank was a sharp contrast from last year when the Japanese firm had seen some of its India investments — mainly