German firm Metro’s exit from India by selling its 19-year-old business venture – Metro India (Metro Cash and Carry India) – to Reliance Retail Venture (RRVL) hasn’t come as a surprise to anybody.
The Indian market has been a graveyard for many foreign retail giants in the past. French B2B major Carrefour lost its appetite for India within a short period of four years while the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, first let go of 56 employees in January 2020 and a few months later, it sold the wholesale business to Flipkart. And Amazon, which bought a 49% stake in Future coupons, hasn’t been able to make any headway and is still battling it out in Indian courts.
