Musk gains foothold in India via Twitter deal

Making Inroads

- Tesla has long been facing regulatory hurdles in India

- Unable to launch its electric cars

- Despite opening its offices in India, Tesla is yet to start manufacturing

- India has 2nd largest internet user base

- India remained a tough mkt to crack for Musk so far

- Twitter has 300mn accounts globally

- With 76.9 mn users, US leads Twitter accounts

- Followed by Japan with59 mn users

- India has 23.6 mn users

Bengaluru: With Twitter board giving in principle approval to Elon Musk by accepting its buyout offer, Musk will have a significant engineering presence in India for the first time through Twitter.

"Twitter will be the only company under Elon Musk-promoted firms which has a significant engineering presence in India. His other firms are still struggling to find feet in the country," said an expert, who watches global tech giants closely.

Musk is trying hard for quite some time to gain foothold in India. Through his company Starlink- a part of SpaceX-, the technology entrepreneur has plans to provide satellite internet to every part of the country. The satellite internet provider had also received over 5,000 pre-orders in India, but was not able to bag commercial licences for operations without which the company cannot provide internet services. According to experts, India with second largest internet user base has remained a tough market to crack for Musk so far.

Similarly, Tesla has long been facing regulatory hurdles in the launch of its electric cars in India. Despite opening its offices in India, the company is yet to start manufacturing here. On Tuesday, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said in an event that Elon Musk's Tesla should make its cars in India to sell in the country. "He can't manufacture in China and sell in India," said Gadkari.

However, with acquisition of Twitter, Musk will gain some ground in India as the social media platform has a R&D centre in Bengaluru. Outside of the US, Twitter has engineering teams in London, Toronto, Singapore and Bengaluru.

Twitter has a user base of around 300 million across the world. Despite having a much lesser user base as compared to Facebook, TikTok and other social media platforms; Twitter is popular with celebrities, world leaders, journalists and intellectuals. Given the personalities on the platform, Twitter is seen as a serious platform by users. India is one of the priority markets for Twitter which has 23.6 million users. US leads the show with 76.9 million users, followed by 59 million users in Japan.

However, the growth of Twitter is slowing down since 2015, a fact which has recently been flagged up by Elon Musk himself before mounting a takeover bid.

Twitter will be the only company under Elon Musk-promoted firms and it's a significant engineering presence in India. His other firms are still struggling to find feet in the country, said an expert, who watches global tech giants closely