India's Century

Masayoshi Son is searching for the next Jack Ma, a quest which he thinks might meet with success amidst the ranks of Indian entrepreneurs selling to consumers and businesses through the Internet.
Son, 57, the founder of Japanese Internet and telecom group SoftBank, says he is constantly on the lookout for entrepreneurial “heroes“ who create jobs in the manner of Alibaba's Jack Ma, who has created employment for 25 million. Son's investment in Alibaba, the Chinese online marketplace, is the stuff of legend with a $20 million investment made 14 years ago now worth $80 billion after the Chinese firm listed earlier this year. SoftBank owns 37% of Alibaba, which had a market cap of $250 billion on Tuesday .
Such “local heroes“ could emerge in India as well provided Asia's third largest economy manages to create the digital super-highway envisaged by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“I think India will be one of the top two economies in this century -it has over a billion people, good education and engineering skills. This is India's century. It could be among the top two economies in the world,“ he said in an interview on Tuesday. “With that belief, if you can invest (at a) low price and harvest high price, it's a good investment,“ he added, sitting alongside Nikesh Arora, the Google executive he poached recently. Arora, who joined as vice-chairman and CEO of SoftBank Internet and Media in July this year, is spearheading the group's US business, as well as its foray into the media and entertainment industries.
On Monday, SoftBank announced a $627 million investment in Snapdeal, becoming the largest investor in the fast-growing online marketplace. It also announced a $210 million investment in Olacabs, a transport aggregator that competes with Uber.Cumulatively, SoftBank has invested more than $1 billion in Indian startups, becoming the largest investor in that space. Son was enthused about Snapdeal's prospects, pointing to its growth of 800% per year. The SoftBank founder is in India on a three-day visit that started on Monday with an hour-long meeting with Prime Minister Modi.
Son, whose stated goal is to head the largest company in the world, was wooed by the Indian prime minister on his recent trip to Japan. “Last month, Prime Minister Modi visited Tokyo. We had a face-to-face meeting. He gave us more confidence that India is going to be more transparent and deregulated with lot of focus and passion to improve India as the environment for investment,“ he said.
The diminutive Son, famous for sometimes setting outlandish goals (and even achieving some of them), was born in a poor South Korean family. His father was a pig farmer who brewed illegal alcohol. In explaining SoftBank's investment philosophy, Son likens himself to the conductor of an orchestra. “We would like to be the conductor of the information revolution by looking at the total landscape and understanding which parts are growing to grow more quickly.“
He will be listening to the pitches of nearly two dozen startups over Tuesday and Wednesday, in an attempt to identify future Alibabas. SoftBank has grown more than 600 times since its founding in 1981 and the $66-billion (revenue for the year ended 2013) company could potentially grow a hundred-fold, according to Son.
The relatively poor state of India's Internet infrastructure -the country's ranking in terms of Internet access is 142 -resulting in “traffic jams on the information highway“ could trip up SoftBank's plans though mobile provides an opportunity to leapfrog the problem. “If the Internet infrastructure is not there, our investment does not do any good. Now, finally, mobile Internet is taking off in India,“ said Son.
Mobile commerce in India is booming with top ecommerce companies including Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon seeing nearly half of sales taking place via consumers' mobile handsets. This year, around 225 million smartphones will be sold in India, with many users accessing Internet for the first time on their mobiles. India's ecommerce market is projected to grow seven-fold to around $22 billion in the next five years, according to a CLSA report.