Photo/Shetuwang

May 31 (NBD) -- Chinese tech giant Alibaba is pumping capital exceeding 100 million U.S. dollars into VMate which was launched in India in 2017 by Alibaba's subsidiary UCWeb, according to news reports.

National Business Daily (NBD) noticed that VMate, a User Generated Content platform targeting young people in India, will be included into Alibaba's Innovative Business Group which oversees the team cooperation tool Dingtalk, the smart speaker Tmall Genie, and the operating system AliOS, an artificial intelligence lab, etc.

Alibaba has become one of the world's biggest investors in India's e-commerce and food-tech markets. The tech behemoth has heavily invested in Paytm, BigBasket, Zomato and Snapdeal.

The investment in the short-video platform by Alibaba also serves as a testament to the growing popularity of Chinese apps in India.

Through State of Mobile 2019 report released by mobile analytics platform App Annie, NBD found that India continues to be among the fastest-growing mobile app markets in the world, with downloads growing by a massive 165 percent in the last two years, and in terms of absolute downloads, India trails only China.

According to technology news site FactorDaily, in December 2017, there were only 18 Chinese mobile apps listed in the top 100 mobile apps on Google PlayStore in India, and the number had surged to 44 by the end of 2018.

In the video market specifically, Chinese apps such as ByteDance's TikTok and Kwai of Tencent-backed Kuaishou, have managed to gain a foothold in India. Both TikTok and Kwai ranked among the top platforms in India on Google PlayStore as of February 2019, according to FD Research.

Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn