Facebook Invests $5.7 Billion in Indian Internet Giant Jio - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/technology/facebook-jio-india.html
SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook on Tuesday made its largest single investment by putting $5.7 billion into Jio Platforms of India, an enormous bet on the developing market and a sign of how large tech companies are forging ahead in the pandemic.
Jio Platforms is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, one of India’s biggest multinational companies and a major provider of cellular and internet services in the country. The investment, which requires approval from competition regulators, would give Facebook a 9.99 percent stake in Jio Platforms, Jio said.
Facebook said the move indicated its commitment to India. More than 388 million people in India have been connected to the internet over the past four years through Jio, Facebook said.
Facebook is moving forward with strategic investments at a fragile time in the global economy. While many businesses have been hurt by the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, large technology companies are positioned to benefit in the long run as more people turn to their services while sheltering indoors. Companies such as Apple, Alphabet and Facebook all have financial muscle to ride out a difficult period.
En ligne de mire un projet comme We Chat ou Alibaba pour l’Inde
Facebook sees plenty of opportunity with Jio. India is a large market for Facebook; more than 400 million people in the country use WhatsApp, its global messaging service, while more than 300 million people use the company’s core social network.
Facebook has historically not made as much money from each user in Asia as it does elsewhere. But the company hinted that the new partnership could change that. WhatsApp has worked for years to build tools for small businesses and has dabbled in payment systems, while Facebook has also invested in creating digital storefronts for entrepreneurs to sell goods and services online.
“By bringing together JioMart, Jio’s small-business initiative, with WhatsApp, we can enable people to connect with businesses, shop and ultimately purchase products in a seamless mobile experience,” said a statement by David Fischer, Facebook’s chief revenue officer, and Ajit Mohan, Facebook’s managing director in India.
This is not Facebook’s first foray into the Indian market. Several years ago, it tried to offer free internet connectivity to Indian users in a program called Free Basics. But that initiative hit snag after snag until it was banned in the country in 2016. Regulators decided that companies could not offer free internet services that favored some companies over others.
More recently, Facebook has been at loggerheads with the Indian government over WhatsApp. The government has demanded that WhatsApp change its encryption to trace messages back to their source, which WhatsApp has refused to do. At the same time, regulators have repeatedly stalled WhatsApp’s request to offer a payments service to its Indian users.
