IndiaMART.com plans to enter overseas markets

The Hindu Business Line

MUMBAI, SEPTEMBER 11:Online B2B marketplace IndiaMART.com is looking at more than tripling its Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) to ₹1 lakh crore in the next 3-5 years, banking on an expected growth in industrial segments.

The Noida-based firm is also looking to foray beyond the Indian shores, mainly into non-English speaking countries.

“We expect growth mainly from the wholesale business. Now, we are not doing much in the wholesale business, rather than being a lead generating, handholding and advertising platform,” Dinesh Agarwal, Founder and Managing Director, IndiaMART, said.

“The growth is expected from infrastructure, which is a big push for India, followed by automobile and e-commerce sectors,” Agarwal added. The company’s present GMV, a term used in online retailing to indicate total sales of merchandise, is at about ₹30,000 crore.

IndiaMART is also scouting for strategic tie-ups both on buy and sell sides of various brands. “We have a target of 10,000 brands and we hope to get 1,000 brands by the end of this financial year,” he added.

The company has also plans to venture into European, German and Latin American markets.

Investments in Tolexo
Indiamart, which has already invested ₹50 crore in its platform Tolexo.com, a retailer of business goods and industrial, will pool in another ₹50 crore in the next nine months. These would be raised from internal accruals.

“The investments would be used to build the catalogue itself. At present, we have close to 1 million SKUs available on Tolexo and our target is to build 5 million SKUs over the next two years or so,” Agarwal said.