Tatas now a major online grocer with BigBasket buy

Tata Group has acquir ed a majority stak e in online grocery seller Big Basket for an undisc losed sum o f money, pitting it a gainst the lik es of billionair e Mukesh Ambani's Reliance and Amazon.

The stak e was bought b y Tata Digital Ltd, a unit of Tata Sons, a joint statement by the tw o fir ms said on Friday.

It neither disc losed the quantum of stak e boug ht nor the deal size.

In Mar ch, Competition Commission of India (CCI) had a pproved the acquisition of up to a 54.3% stak e in BigBask et by Tata Digital.

It was pr eviously r eported that Tatas was in talks to buy close to an 80% stake in the online g rocery seller , that is bac ked b y Aliba ba Group, f or USD 1.3-1.6 billion.

The deal will pit the saltto-software conglomera te against Ambani's JioMar t, Amazon and W almart's Flipkart for a pie of the online g rocery b usiness tha t has g rown exponentiall y during the pandemic.

About half of India's USD 1 trillion-r etail mar ket comprises g rocery sales . The online g rocery market is expected to reach USD 4.3 billion in 2021 from USD 2.9 billion in the previous year.

Tata Digital Ltd -- a 100% subsidiary of T ata Sons -has acquir ed a majority stake in Super market Grocery Supplies (which operates BigBask et), the sta tement said.

"Grocery is one of the largest components of an individual's consumption basket in India, and Big - Basket as Indi a's larg est egrocery pla yer, fits in perfectly with our vision of creating a larg e consumer digital ecosystem," Pra tik Pal, CEO of T ata Digital, said.

E-grocery has been one of the f astest-growing se gments in the consumer ecommerce space and its growth has been pr opelled further with India's rising digital penetration.