[Yao Xiao, special correspondent of the Global Times in Pakistan] The "stock god" also lost India. On November 24, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway cleared PayTM, which is regarded as the "Indian version of Alipay", and the next step of the company's founder Vijay Shekhar Shamal attracted attention from the outside world. Previously, after several major shareholders of Paytm were successively **, Shamal expressed with practical actions that he would stand with the company. From a small-town boy with poor English to India's youngest richest man, Shamal has grown his business with a keen sense of business. This time, how will he break the game?
"Advance and retreat with the company".
Berkshire Hathaway announced that it has withdrawn from its investment in Paytm after taking its entire stake in the company. Britain's Reuters news agency reported that this is not the first company to sell its shares in Paytm this year. China's Ant Group, the largest shareholder at the time of listing, and Japan's SoftBank Group, the second largest shareholder, announced in August and November this year, respectively**. In September, Paytm's founder, Shamal, bought back Paytm's shares from Ant Group, becoming the company's single largest shareholder.
Vijay Shekhar Shamal (AFP).
Shamar's pledge to work with companies in the process of capital reshuffle has been well received in India. In an interview with Bloomberg, Shamal said that the current Paytm is focusing on the sinking market and hopes to promote mobile payments at low cost "in the Indian way". "I will not stop buying shares in Paytm, and now that Paytm's single largest shareholder is an Indian, this is definitely a key milestone. Shamal said that the withdrawal of foreign capital is not a bad thing for Paytm, and he will better guide Paytm to find a new direction of development.
India's Economic Times commented on Shamal: "A small-town boy has launched a digital payment revolution in a cash-based country. When the company is facing challenges, it does not hesitate to gamble all its net worth and the company to advance and retreat together. ”
Won the first pot of gold in his life during college
Shamal was born in 1978 to a middle-class family in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, northern India, where his father was a teacher. Shamar was very intelligent from a young age and was known as a "child prodigy" and entered college at the age of 15. In 1994, he moved to the Indian capital to study at the then Delhi Institute of Engineering (now known as Delhi University of Technology) as Xi. However, Shamal, who graduated from a Hindi school, did not speak English well and had a hard time adapting to English teaching. Unable to understand the lectures, Shamal lost interest in the engineering major he Xi and turned his attention to the emerging fields of computer software and the Internet at that time, and found a development direction in learning Xi programming.
While in college, Shamal and 3 friends started a company called XS Corps, used the school computer to create electronic itineraries for airlines, and set up an "India Tour"** to earn 1,000 rupees (about 85.) for the first time47 RMB). He also developed a set of "content management tools" to provide services for building portals and search engines, and his clients were Indian Express, among others.
At the end of 1999, an American company bought Shamal's company for $1 million**, and Shamal split the cash of Rs. 10 million equally with his partners. After graduating, many of Shamal's classmates chose to study or work in the United States. After his application for a U.S. visa was denied, he decided to "stop letting money define me" and continue to stay in India to start his own business.
At that time, mobile phones were just beginning to be popularized in India, and Shamal immediately saw an entrepreneurial opportunity in the field of mobile communications. The company he founded, one97 communications, has been a great success in working with Indian telecom operators to provide news and information inquiries to mobile phone users in the form of short messages.
In 2007, Apple launched the first generation of smartphones. Phones with apps made Schamal realize that consumers would be turning to the mobile internet. "Our business is dying," he says, turning his attention to mobile payments. However, the board of directors of one97 communications is generally opposed to this business, arguing that the penetration rate of smartphones in India is not high, and the initial investment in the investment of mobile payment technology is high and the operational risk is high. But under pressure from the board of directors, Shamal launched PayTM (Pay Through Mobile), an e-wallet for individual consumers, in 2010.
Inspired by China, aim for mobile payments
During a trip to China, Shamal saw consumers paying merchants by showing their smartphones, and he felt the payment method should be promoted in India, according to Fortune India. At the 2011 conference held by Wall Street**, Jack Ma gave a speech, and Shamal learned about China's ** and Alipay for the first time. When he returned, he told the team, "We have to build India's **."
But he soon realized that the model would be difficult to replicate in India because of the lack of smartphones, the internet and trust in new things. According to Fortune India, the number of smartphones in India was between 25 million and 35 million in 2011-2012. Beginning with a user base by offering cashback to merchants, PayTM has gradually transformed from a mobile top-up and bill payment platform to an ecosystem that covers a wide range of payment-related services.
In 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the implementation of the "demonetization order" to stop the use of large-denomination banknotes, and vigorously promoted digital payments in India, which promoted the further popularity of Paytm. In 2017, Paytm became the first payment app in India to surpass 100 million times. This year, Shamal became India's youngest billionaire with a net worth of $1.3 billion.
In an interview with Fortune India, Shamal said he appreciates the defeatist temperament of Paytm investors such as Jack Ma, Warren Buffett, etc. When they first started their business, they didn't have the label of "success", but they never set limits for themselves, and they became one of the most successful people in the world.
Now, in addition to investor withdrawal, Paytm faces a number of challenges. First of all, India** launched a "unified payment interface", bringing all payment platforms into unified management, and said that no platform is allowed to charge merchants fees in transactions, which blocks one of Paytm's most direct incomes**. Although India** recently said that it would provide some compensation taking into account the operating costs of various platforms, analysts generally believe that these policies are unlikely to cover the actual expenses of companies such as Paytm in business competition.
Secondly, Phonepe and Google Pay are currently the top payment platforms in India, and they are both controlled by American capital. Compared to these two companies, PayTM relies on costly and slow ways to acquire new users, such as merchant promotion and cash back to consumers. As foreign capital continues to enter the market, it will become more difficult for Paytm to maintain its current position.
Shamal's notes, disclosed by India's "Outlook Business"**, read: "Entrepreneurship can only succeed if there is no other choice." When things don't go my way, hope is a panacea. ”
According to the global network.