Reliance entry to digitise 5 million kirana stores by 2023: Report

Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries' entry into online retailing will help expand the current 15,000 digitised retail stores to over 5 million by 2023, a study of Bank of America Merrill Lynch said.

As much as 90 per cent of India's USD 700 billion retail market is unorganised, made up mostly of neighbourhood kirana stores selling groceries and other sundries.

These kirana stores are keen to upgrade their tech and this is driving a wave of modernization, the study said.

"This is on the back of growing competition from modern trade and e-commerce," it said. "GST implementation has also acted as a catalyst, creating further modernization pressure as GST compliant bills have to be generated."

Reliance, with a deep footprint in over 10,000 Reliance Retail outlets pan-India, is working to create the world's largest online-to-offline e-commerce platform in the country.

Reliance is looking at installing its Jio MPoS (mobile point-of-sale) device at kirana stores to connect ..