Reliance Retail emerges top challenger to Flipkart, Amazon

With its wide reach and telecom penetration by arm Jio, Reliance Retail is expected to emerge as the biggest challenger to Amazon, Flipkart by 2018. Indeed, big players like Amazon, Flipkart and PayTm in will attract more capital. Smaller players may struggle and consolidation would be the name of the game in e-commerce next year, with small firms shutting shop, leaving fewer players in an environment of intense competition, says former CFO of Infosys T V Mohandas Pai.

Pai feels in e-commerce, the biggest threat to Amazon and Flipkart will be Reliance Retail because Reliance Jio is there all over India; they can easily connect to all the small, small retail stores and supply to them and improve their business dramatically. Meanwhile, speaking on the Indian start-up scene in general, Pai says funding has become discerning, except for large companies to which big firms are pouring in money.

He says 2018 will be a better year for start-ups as the country's economic growth would improve. Next calendar year, start-ups will heat up again because many of them have done well and they are going to raise the next round of financing next year. Balakrishnan says funding has become selective in start-ups. Earlier, all kinds of start-ups were funded. At present, unless you have a strong business idea, the funding environment has become challenging.