95% of foreign investors face obstacles to doing business in India - PwC survey

By: WE Staff | Friday, 27 September 2024

News Daily India reported that among the companies that have faced problems in the Indian market are Motorola, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Parimatch, Nokia, Vodafone and Walmart.

India continues to lose its attractiveness to foreign investors, despite its large population and rapid market growth. According to PwC, about 95% of companies that have operated or intended to enter the Indian market have faced serious problems such as fraud and corruption. Among them is a well-known international player in the gambling market – Parimatch. It has experienced a number of obstacles, namely counterfeiting of its products by local competitors and ignorance of these offenses by the authorities. The company has to fight clone sites that duplicate its corporate style, violating copyright, and block them.

According to News Daily India, given challenges such as regulatory and bureaucratic hurdles, infrastructural constraints, cultural and linguistic differences, and competition with local businesses, foreign capital is finding fewer and fewer reasons to invest in India.

International companies with large capital used to perceive the Indian market as promising in the face of reduced and weakened government regulations. India was expecting a lot of investment. However, these conditions were never created, and hopes for investment growth were never justified.

For example, the bookmaker Parimatch planned to invest millions of dollars in India’s economy. However, there was local support from the monopoly of domestic companies in the gambling market, such as Dream11, Nazara Technologies, Paytm, First Games Moonfrog Labs, 99Games, Octro, JetSynthesys, and HashCube. In addition, these companies counterfeited the products of competitors from the United States and Europe. The authorities did not interfere with such cases. Also, in the Indian market, there were facts of persecution and judicial pressure even on companies that had never operated in the country.

These problems are pushing foreign companies to leave India or reconsider their strategy. Giants such as Ford, Holcim, and Metro were forced to leave the Indian market. In addition, the American investment company Berkshire Hathaway sold its shares in the Indian company Paytm, which emphasized the final loss of confidence in the Indian market.

In this context, Parimatch and other foreign companies are facing a difficult choice: to deal with growing challenges or to look for better opportunities outside of India. This situation highlights the need for the Indian government to improve its business environment if it wants to retain and attract foreign capital in the future.