Also in this letter:
■ Google violating CCI orders, alleges Epic Games
■ CCI investigation on Apple’s app store nears completion
■ FM directs MCA to address website glitches
Exclusive | JioMart shuts quick delivery service Express within a year
Reliance Retail’s JioMart has quietly paused the operations of JioMart Express, the quick commerce grocery delivery service launched in March 2022, sources told us. Users can no longer download the JioMart Express app from the Google Play Store, and its website is also inactive.
Further, users are being directed to JioMart on WhatsApp where deliveries take a few hours or even a day as against the 90-minute delivery service of JioMart Express.
Confirmation: “They (JioMart) do not want to be in this kind of heavy-burn business. Amid the hype last year, they also experimented with express deliveries, but it’s not going to be continued,” one of the sources aware of the matter told us. A spokesperson for Reliance Retail confirmed the development.
Course correction: Existing players such as Swiggy’s Instamart, Zomato’s Blinkit, Zepto, and BigBasket’s BB Now are constantly looking to increase average order value or even nudge consumers into longer delivery timelines to cut costs on each order.
Reliance Retail is also the single largest investor in quick commerce startup Dunzo. ET reported in January that Reliance Retail may write a relatively smaller cheque in the new funding round planned at Dunzo, which fired around 3% of its staff last month and undertook significant changes to rein in spiralling operating costs last year.
Difficult to sustain: According to market experts, all existing players in the quick commerce segment are struggling to be profitable.
The two largest ecommerce players in India – Flipkart and Amazon – have largely stayed away from quick deliveries even amid the peak hype of 15-30 minute deliveries.
Also read | Why nobody is talking about 10-minute deliveries anymore
Reliance enters beauty ecommerce, to compete with Nykaa, Tata Cliq Palette
Reliance Retail on Tuesday launched an online beauty platform, Tira, heating up the competition within the rapidly growing beauty ecommerce space, led by Nykaa, new entrant Tata Cliq Palette, and others, including Sephora, SS Beauty by Shopper’s Stop and Myntra.
Details: The platform, with dedicated makeup, skin and haircare, fragrances, bathing, men’s beauty and luxury sections, and Valentine’s section, is open initially to all Reliance employees and will soon be enabled for consumers.
Future plans: Reliance Retail has also been operating a beauty ecommerce platform on its JioMart platform, which retails products for makeup, skincare and fragrances.
With Tira, Reliance plans to scale up with a vast collection of mass, premium and luxury labels and its own private labels. The company is also pursuing an omnichannel retail strategy, with a focus on both online and physical stores, executives aware of the plans said.
Also read | Reliance readies Nykaa rival using two of its startup acquisitions
Fortnite-maker Epic Games moves NCLAT against Google
Global gaming company Epic Games, the maker of the popular video game Fortnite, has moved the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) alleging that tech behemoth Google had failed to comply with several directions from the Competition Commission of India (CCI), sources told us.
The allegations: Epic Games stated in its petition that Google disregarded CCI’s orders in the Android case and persisted in implementing actions for which it was penalised and reprimanded by the competition regulator.
The company said it was seeking to join Indian developers in court to support the CCI’s order that requires Google to allow other third-party app stores on the Google Play Store.
Epic Games vs Big Tech: In August 2020, the company filed a lawsuit against Google in US courts, alleging that the tech giant was engaging in anti-competitive practices by enforcing a 30% commission on in-app purchases. The case is still pending in the courts.
Exclusive | CCI may soon take a bite out of Apple
The Competition Commission of India is near the end of its examination of Apple’s app store and billing policies, people aware of the matter told us. This is similar to the antitrust regulator’s investigation into Google which led to the regulator imposing fines to the tune of Rs 2,300 crore last October.
Catch up quick: CCI initiated an inquiry into Apple’s policies in December 2021 after Together We Fight Society, a non-profit organisation, alleged that the tech giant was charging high commissions and not offering third-party payment options.
Following this, industry group Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) and US-based internet and tech company Match Group also filed complaints on comparable grounds, which were subsequently combined with the ongoing investigation.
Apple’s game plan: The iPhone maker anticipates that the competition watchdog will follow a trajectory similar to Google’s in its case as well. The iPhone maker expects that it may be forced to reduce the commission it charges from developers and provide third-party billing options, sources told us.
FM directs MCA to address issues related to website glitches
Finance and corporate affairs minister Nirmala Sitharaman directed the corporate ministry on Tuesday to form a special team to address public grievances related to glitches in the filing portal, a day after ET reported the issues faced by many unlisted private companies in accessing the website.
FM’s directions: In a series of tweets, Sitharaman also asked the ministry to monitor the issues faced by market participants regarding the portal on a daily basis.
The ministry moved to a new version of portal V3, which was launched on January 23. Until then, the stakeholders were using the V2 portal, which was administered by Infosys.
Both listed and unlisted companies attempting to file regulatory documents had been facing issues with the MCA21 portal’s version 3 (V3) after the ministry transitioned 46 new forms to V3 from V2.
‘Working fine’: LTIMindtree, developer of the portal, said it was “working fine”, adding that the new portal had registered 1.6 million filings in the past year alone.
“We wish to clarify that the state-of-the-art MCA21 portal is working fine,” LTI Mindtree had said. “The latest version of the portal incorporates several critical controls and validations. Users must fully adapt to them for seamless regulatory filings.”
PhonePe picks up another $100 million in funding at $12-bn valuation
After raising $350 million in funding last month from General Atlantic, digital payments firm PhonePe has raised another $100 million in funding from a clutch of investors.
Who has invested? With this second tranche, the fintech startup has raised $450 million in the first two months of this year.
Ribbit Capital, TVS Capital Funds and Flipkart’s early backer Tiger Global are three investors who have put in funds at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion.
Most-valuable fintech: PhonePe had raised $350 million in funding from global private equity firm General Atlantic at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion, making it the most valuable privately held Indian fintech firm.
PhonePe, owned by Walmart, was previously valued at $5.5 billion after raising $700 million from the US retail major in December 2020.
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