Reliance plans to acquire JustDial to reinforce local commerce

Reliance Industries has reportedly planned to take control of JustDial, a local platform for business listings. The agreement could be secured at a price of around USD 800 million to USD 900 million.

Currently, JustDial is valued at around Rs. 6,980 crore. Once the deal is executed, Reliance Industries Ltd. will possibly own around 60 percent of JustDial.

A Reliance spokesperson supposedly stated that the official announcement of this acquisition will be made by JustDial after its board meeting on 16th July.

If the acquisition deal is successful, it would enable Reliance Industries to reinforce its database of merchants as the Mukesh Ambani-owned- conglomerate amplifies its local commercial operations across India.

Coincidentally, JustDial also held talks with Tata Digital for a strategic partnership as the Ratan Tata-owned conglomerate has recently been busy acquiring companies. However, the meeting held in March did not reach a solid conclusion.

JustDial, a company founded by VSS Mani in 1996 had around 30.4 million business listings in over 250 cities by the end of FY21. It has a local search engine, which includes an app, a website, and a hotline number. The company witnesses around 150 million unique visits every quarter.

To date, JustDial users have contributed over 121.24 million ratings and reviews for different listings. While businesses have the alternative of free listing, the platform has witnessed more than 4.57 lakh paid campaigns.

In February 2021, the business listing platform launched JD Mart, a B2B marketplace platform. It focuses on allowing millions of Indian distributors, manufacturers, retailers, and wholesalers to get their businesses on the internet post the COVID-19 era and gain consumers using online channels.

The company reportedly commented that JD Mart provides digital catalogs of products to businesses, particularly MSMEs across various categories. Buyers can explore quality vendors providing a wide portfolio of products spread across millions of categories, to cater to all B2B needs.

Source credits:

https://yourstory.com/2021/07/reliance-acquire-justdial-local-listings-platfrom-commerce/amp