Meta announced the beginning of cooperation with the Indian Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).

The specified partnership is aimed at providing organizations belonging to the category of small businesses to establish an unhindered dialogue between buyers and sellers based on the virtual WhatsApp platform. In this case, to achieve the goal of full-fledged interaction between those who sell and those who buy, the tools and mechanisms of the digital ecosystem of Meta. Solutions from business and technical providers will be applied. The relevant information is contained in a message posted on the blog of the social media giant last Tuesday, December 19.

At the initial stage of the partnership, Meta will carry out professional development activities for micro, small, and midsize enterprises in India. In this case, the social media giant will help companies gain digital marketing skills to achieve good results on platforms operating in the space of its virtual ecosystem. In this case, the professional development process will be carried out through the Meta Small Business Academy.

T Koshy, Managing Director and CEO of ONDC says that currently, to achieve the growth goal of any business, it is extremely important to successfully cope with the task of proper market positioning and reach a wide consumer audience. He also noted that the implementation of partnerships with the social media giant will not only allow Indian companies to increase their level of digital skills but also give these firms access to a large customer base.

ONDC was founded last year. This open network makes digital commerce a kind of neutral platform. This year, ONDC began facilitating B2B transactions.

Meta’s new partnerships, which will be implemented in the sphere of Indian business, are another example of the company’s efforts to promote its services in a South Asian country with a huge customer base. In September, the social media giant announced that local users would be allowed to shop directly in chat rooms. Similar solutions have also been launched in Brazil and Singapore.

Residents of India have the opportunity to add products to their cart and send payment in any way of their choice from all supported UPI apps, debit and credit cards, and more. Meta stated that it is pleased to cooperate with Razorpay and PayU partners so that consumers in the South Asian country have access to simple payment transaction mechanisms.

Currently, WhatApp’s user base in India is over 500 million people. This figure is approximately 50% of the population of the South Asian country. Currently, India has a very comfortable infrastructure for making payment transactions. Local consumers use digital wallets to pay for 55% of retail purchases.

Currently, in India, the scale of the use of innovative technological solutions for financial operations exceeds similar indicators in the United States or the United Kingdom. In the South Asian country, representatives of Generation Z, millennials, and bridge millennials were the first to start shopping digitally.

As we have reported earlier, Meta Launches Threads for European Users.