The Silicon Review ^Asia

Recently, Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL) had made an announcement that it acquired controlling stakes in Just Dial (JD). According to reports from industry analysts, the retail giant is expected to make full use of JD’s B2B search engine specialization to gain access to various large merchants who can join the company’s ecommerce platform JioMart. The new move is also expected to allow RRVL to make use of JD’s venture into ticket booking for train, bus, and flight. Along with that, users can also pay bills, book hotels, and get cab services, among others.

Mukesh Ambani, managing director and chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), had previously laid out a target to onboard more than 10 million merchants for his company’s ecommerce initiative. The target is expected to be achieved by the next three years, and this announcement came in RIL’s annual AGM, which was held last month. RRVL had bought 66.95 percent of stakes in JD, and the entire deal amounted to Rs 5,720 crore. So far, JD has continued to work in the marketplace model, and it has offered various services like logistics, chat, catalog management, and payment solutions. Along with that, JD also provided working capital loans and insurance to SMEs.