Social media giant Facebook is looking to have a major impact in India through its partnership with Reliance Jio. At the first Facebook Fuel for India 2020 event, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said its collaboration with Jio would help small businesses (SMBs) grow in the country. Earlier this year, Facebook announced an investment of Rs 43,574 crore in Jio Platforms for a stake purchase of 9.99%. Zuckerberg added that the main goal of Facebook is serving SMBs and India has over 60 million SMBs to date. With COVID-19 having a major impact on SMBs, Reliance Jio and Facebook are looking to support them. Furthermore, the Facebook CEO added WhatsApp Pay has a lot of potential in the country and will make sure to take the service deeper.
Reliance Jio and Facebook to Work on Helping SMBs
He also added that the partnership with Jio Platforms would help grow the SMBs. A lot of SMBs faced issues during the COVID-19 pandemic and supporting SMBs has become more important, he further added. Furthermore, Zuckerberg said the COVID-19 is accelerating SMBs to go digital from physical storefronts. “Through our partnership (Jio Platforms and Facebook), we will become a value creation platform for our customers and small businesses, giving them a chance to digitise and be at par with anybody else in the world,” said, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries.
Facebook CEO Terms India as a Special Country
At the same event, the Facebook CEO also termed India as a ‘special country’ that has a remarkable entrepreneurship culture. Facebook is looking to push WhatsApp Pay deeper in the country. For the unaware, WhatsApp Pay received NPCI nod last month and it is currently being rolled to all the 400 million WhatsApp users in the country. “We just launched WhatsApp payments in India last month – now you can send money to your friends and family through WhatsApp, as easily as sending a message. That was possible because of the UPI system that has been built in India,” Zuckerberg said. WhatsApp Pay works on UPI which has changed the landscape of India’s digital payment sector.
