Alibaba makes $100 million bet in Indian short video market dominated by ByteDance’s TikTok

Chinese technology conglomerate Alibaba, which had aggressively backed Indian startups including Paytm, Zomato, BigBasket, Snapdeal etc., is looking to leverage India’s, particularly youth, fascination for short-form video content driven by the affordable cost of data and smartphone penetration.

Alibaba is investing $100 million in its video app VMate, launched in 2016, to capture short video or social video apps market in India, TechCrunch reported. India’s over-the-top video streaming market, which is expected to grow to $5-billion mark by 2023 from $500 million in 2018 as per a report by Boston Consulting Group, is currently led by TikTok that is owned by reportedly world’s most valuable startup — China’s ByteDance valued at around $75 billion.