Alibaba to set up technology development centre in India

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is evaluating options to set up a technology development centre in India in yet another global endorsement of the country’s software engineering talent, three people familiar with the development said.

The talks between Alibaba, the government and other likely partners are “at a very early stage“, they said. Alibaba is currently evaluating options to tap into India’s software engineering prowess and follow in the footsteps of other multi-billion dollar global technology companies like Apple that have also made moves to leverage Indian technology talent in recent years.

“While the talks are still at an early stage, Alibaba is very aware of the fact that India has a growing pool of engineers who have specialised in new-age retail and ecommerce. And that is something the company wants to leverage -similar to how Amazon did,“ said a person aware of Alibaba’s thinking around this move. An Alibaba spokesperson declined to comment for this story .

The Chinese major’s move comes months after Apple confirmed that it would build a technology development centre outside the US in Hyderabad with an investment of $25 million.

Alibaba Group president J Michael Evans and its global managing director K Guru Gowrappan had met telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday , after which Evans hinted that Alibaba would expand its footprint in India thro ugh various channels and may enter the country’s booming ecommerce space this year.

“We are planning to enter the ecommerce business in India in 2016. We have been exploring very carefully the ecommerce opportunity in this country , which we think is very exciting on the backdrop of Digital India,“ Evans was quoted as saying in a PTI report.

Alibaba already has an indirect presence in India’s ecommerce market.

Alibaba and its financial service affili ate have 40% stake in ewallet and ecommerce firm Paytm. It has made an investment in ecommerce platform Snapdeal as well.

“We have investments in both payments and ecommerce already and we will over the course of next year figure out exactly what our strategy is,“ Evans said.

Given the early-stage na ture of the talks around the technology development centre, it is not clear how much Alibaba plans to invest in setting up such a centre and how many people it would hire.

The sources quoted earlier said the centre could come up sometime towards the end of 2016 or early next year.In recent years, global retailers like Target have set up technology development centres and corporate accelerator programmes to tap into India’s software talent as well as its flourishing startup ecosystem.

Source: techgig.com