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Business conglomerate Tata Sons has acquired a majority stake in the grocery e-commerce seller Big Basket. The deal whose financial details have not been made public yet was made through Tata’s wholly-owned subsidiary Tata Digital. The acquisition makes Tata a leading player in the rapidly growing online grocery market, putting it in direct competition with Amazon, JioMart, Walmart backed Flipkart and Grofers.
Earlier in April, the Competition Commission of India had given its approval to Tata’s acquisition of a 64.3 per cent stake in Supermarket Grocery Supplies Private(SGS), the company which operates Big Basket. Pratik Pal, CEO of Tata Digital, said in a statement, “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 perfectly with our vision of creating a large consumer digital ecosystem,”. “We are delighted to welcome BigBasket as a part of Tata Digital,” he added. The deal has come at a time when the pandemic induced lockdown has led to a large number of customers shifting from physical to online stores for day to day grocery shopping.
Launched in 2011 from Bangalore, Big Basket has over the years expanded its presence to 25 Indian cities. “As a part of the Tata ecosystem, we would be able to build stronger consumer-connect and accelerate our journey,” Hari Menon, co-founder and CEO of Big Basket said in a statement
Meanwhile, Tata’s have also announced the plan to launch a super app by 2022. Started by China’s We Chat, a super app provides access to a large number of services through a single app, thus reducing the inconvenience for users to download multiple apps. Tata aims to provide access to various consumer businesses under its conglomerate like Qmin, Tata CLiq, Croma, etc.