Tata Sons, through its wholly owned subsidiary Tata Digital, has acquired a majority stake in the Alibaba-backed online grocery seller BigBasket (Supermarket Grocery Supplies Private Limited). E-grocery has been one of the fastest growing segments in the consumer e-commerce space and the deal comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic and resultant lockdowns have spurred a big shift to online shopping, especially for food and groceries.
The stake buy in Bigbasket will place Tata Group in direct race with Amazon, Flipkart, JioMart and SoftBank-backed Grofers, which have been hitherto dominating the e-commerce space in the country.
Pratik Pal, CEO of Tata Digital said: "Grocery is one of the largest components of an individual's consumption basket in India, and Bigbasket as India's largest e-grocery player, fits in perfectly with our vision of creating a large consumer digital ecosystem. We are delighted to welcome Bigbasket as a part of the Tata Digital."
The Competition Commission of India had, in April, approved Tata Digital's offer of acquiring up to 64.3 per cent stake in Supermarket Grocery Supplies Private (SGS) which runs the online grocery delivery platform BigBasket.
BigBasket was founded in 2011 in Bangalore and has a presence in 25 cities across the country.
Meanwhile, the Tata Group has already announced plans to launch a super app that will provide a single-point access to a variety of Tata consumer businesses including Qmin (a food delivery platform), Tata CLiq (lifestyle online shopping site) and Croma (an electronics store). The super app will be launched by Tata Digital in financial year 2022.
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