CRI听力:India's e-commerce on the rise

India's e-commerce sector is on the rise. Given the country's large population and the fact that more and more Indians are getting access to the Internet, investors are keenly eyeing the opportunities.

American retailer Walmart is among those looking to grab a deal in India's online shopping industry.

Our correspondent Rebecca Bundhun reports from Mumbai.

India's e-commerce industry is attracting a flurry of global interest.

US retail giant Walmart is understood to be in talks to invest billions of dollars to snap up Bangalore-based Flipkart, the country's homegrown answer to Amazon.

Meanwhile, Softbank is injecting $400 million into India's online retailer Paytm Mall, while China's Alibaba, already an investor is pumping another $45 million into the company.

Suhail Nathani, the managing director of Mumbai based corporate law firm Economic laws Practice says the opportunity for growth in the country's nascent e-commerce industry is enormous.

"The story in India is true for e-commerce as it is for the brick and mortar business, which is just the story of consumption. You have a billion people, half of whom are aspirational in everything they do, they want a better life, better access, better products. For many large companies it's a very important market and a must-win market."

Investment bank Morgan Stanley forecasts that India's e-commerce sector should grow by 30 per cent a year to reach a gross merchandise value of 200 billion US dollars by 2026.

Rising internet use as smartphones and data get cheaper are helping drive this trend.

Krsnaa Mehta was the third generation in his family's textiles business in Mumbai. But he realised going online was the way forward when he launched a venture called India Circus to sell his design products in 2012.

But it is a tough business, he explains. E-commerce firms go through a lot of cash and there are many players in India that haven't survived.

"Still everyday's a new learning, because it's all about targeting, about understanding who's going to buy our product and getting the ads out there to them, so it's not cheap to run an e-commerce business.

Despite the rapid growth of online shopping, Indians are still heavily dependent on brick and mortar stores. Morgan Stanley's data shows that Online sales only accounted for 2 per cent of retail sales in the country in the financial year to the end of March 2017.

But shoppers in India are warming up to buying online.

"I am a person who does look at online but I prefer to choose after wearing it, after seeing the colours, how does it suit me, so I generally go to the shops to do my shopping.

"If it's groceries or something like that I do it online, and one more thing online is you get a lot of discounts."

There's still a way to go for India, Suhail Nathani says.

"Companies that have got the basic model right have been able to scale up very rapidly. The question that always comes to my mind is how you make them internationally e-commerce companies. The Alibabas and the Amazons have not yet emerged in India and what will it take for us to scale up globally?"

The e-commerce story in India is one to watch.

For China Radio International, I'm Rebecca Bundhun in Mumbai