阿里巴巴拟入股印度移动支付平台

Alibaba is in advanced talks to buy an approximately $500m stake in the parent company of leading Indian mobile payment platform Paytm, marking the Chinese ecommerce group’s first significant foray into the country’s rapidly expanding start-up scene.

阿里巴巴(Alibaba)有意收购印度领先移动支付平台Paytm的母公司大约5亿美元的股权，相关谈判已进入深入阶段。此举将标志着这家中国电子商务集团首次大举进军印度迅速扩大的初创企业领域。

Both Alibaba Group Holding’s ecommerce arm and its online payments unit Alipay are set to participate in the transaction, which will conclude later this month, three people familiar with the deal told the Financial Times.

三名知情人士告诉英国《金融时报》，阿里巴巴集团控股有限公司的电子商务部门和阿里巴巴在线支付部门“支付宝”(Alipay)都将参与这笔交易，该交易预计在本月晚些时候达成。

India enjoyed an ecommerce investment boom in 2014, as prominent Silicon Valley-based funds began pouring fresh funds into fast-growing domestic start-ups, such as e-retailer Flipkart and online marketplace Snapdeal, at multibillion-dollar valuations.

印度在2014年期间兴起一股电子商务投资热潮，一些知名硅谷基金开始向快速增长的印度国内初创企业注入新的资金，如电子零售商Flipkart和在线市场Snapdeal，使这些初创企业的估值达到数十亿美元的水平。

The arrival of Alibaba, the largest ecommerce group by revenue, is likely to increase excitement over the sector’s prospects. It will also pit the Chinese company against US-based Amazon, which invested $2bn in its local subsidiary last year.

作为全球营收最高的电子商务集团，阿里巴巴的到来很可能会增加各方对该行业发展前景的兴奋心情。它也使这家中国企业形成与美国亚马逊(Amazon)对抗的态势；亚马逊去年对其印度子公司投资了20亿美元。

Under the terms of Alibaba’s deal, its two entities will take minority stakes as part of a two-stage investment in One97 Communications, the parent company of Paytm, India’s biggest mobile payments company by market share.

按照上述交易的条款，阿里巴巴的两个实体将收购少数股权，作为对Paytm的母公司One97 Communications两阶段投资的一部分。Paytm是印度市场份额最大的移动支付公司。

Paytm allows Indian phone users to put funds in a mobile wallet, which they can spend on services such as taxi app Uber and cinema service BookMyShow. It claims to have about 20m users.

Paytm让印度的手机用户能够将资金转入一个移动钱包，然后用其支付各种服务，如打车应用优步(Uber)和影院服务BookMyShow。它声称拥有约2000万用户。

Paytm also launched an online marketplace last year, providing a platform for businesses to sell products online. This is similar to Alipay, China’s leading payment platform by revenue, which Alibaba offers in its home market.

去年Paytm还推出了一个在线市场，提供了一个让企业在网上销售产品的平台。这类似于阿里巴巴在本土市场提供的支付宝，中国按营收衡量领先的支付平台。

“The two most exciting sectors in Indian technology are ecommerce and payments, and they [One97] have both,” the person said, on condition of anonymity. “So while the business isn’t as big as Amazon or Snapdeal yet, they have the same parts as the Chinese, so it fits together perfectly.”

“印度技术行业两个最令人兴奋的领域是电子商务和支付，而他们（One97）两者兼备，”要求匿名的一名知情人士表示。“因此，虽然业务尚未达到亚马逊或Snapdeal那样的规模，但它们同这家中国企业具有相同的组成部分，可以完美地结合在一起。”

Although Alibaba is understood to have no plans to launch its own services in India, its likely investment in Paytm follows a string of deals in 2014 by founder Jack Ma, ahead of his company’s blockbuster $25bn initial public offering in New York last September.

尽管阿里巴巴据悉并无计划在印度推出自己的服务，但其对Paytm做出可能的投资之前，创始人马云(Jack Ma) 2014年在他的公司于9月在纽约进行250亿美元首次公开上市(IPO)之前，达成了一连串交易。

Alibaba could not be reached for comment, while Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma declined to discuss his fundraising plans. Paytm’s investors include SAIF, Saama Capital and SAP Ventures.

记者联系不上阿里巴巴请其置评，而Paytm创始人维贾伊•谢卡尔•夏尔马(Vijay Shekhar Sharma)不愿讨论他的融资计划。Paytm的现有投资者包括软银赛富(SAIF)、Saama Capital和SAP Ventures。

Paytm will use the new funds to invest in infrastructure helping thousands of smaller Indian businesses to use their mobile marketplace, grabbing more of an ecommerce sector that will be worth $44bn by 2018, according to analysts at CLSA. Only a small fraction of the country’s 200m internet users transact online, according to Jefferies, a broker.

Paytm将把新的资金投资于基础设施，帮助成千上万的印度中小企业利用其移动市场，以在国内电子商务行业夺取更大的市场份额。里昂证券(CLSA)的分析师们称，到2018年印度电商行业规模将达到440亿美元。据经纪商杰富瑞集团(Jefferies)介绍，目前印度2亿网民中只有一小部分人会进行在线交易。