India, China to fight for top two positions this century: Masayoshi Son, SoftBank Group

NEW DELHI: India’s economy is on the cusp of the "hockey stick" curve before takeoff, and has the potential to overtake the United States within 25 years, the billionaire chairman of Japan’s SoftBank Group said, promising to back his conviction with money to make such an outcome a reality.
Masayoshi Son, 57, who has pledged to invest a total of $30 billion (Rs 1.9 lakh crore) in India so far, told ET in an interview on Monday that it will be India and China fighting for the number one and two positions this century after overtaking the United States.

"I would like to participate in this exciting moment, as we participated in China’s hockey stick moment," he said, referring to the shape of the growth curve of the Middle Kingdom’s economy.

"That’s why I am not just saying these beautiful words, but I am saying it with the money. I am really interested in participating in India’s hockey stick moment," said Son.

Son added that the country today had the right leader that "you should be proud of."

The SoftBank founder is on his second visit to India in less than a year and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha and Power Minister Piyush Goyal. He is due to meet Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje.

On Monday, SoftBank along with India’s Bharti Group and China’s Foxconn announced plans to invest $20 billion into India’s renewable energy sector. Last October, Son committed to invest $10 billion in Indian startups over the next few years and has already pumped in nearly $1 billion in three startups – Snapdeal, Ola and Housing.com – so far. Some investors backing Indian startups feel SoftBank’s entry has led to a gold rush, and helped foster unrealistic ecommerce valuations.

Son said he was happy with the progress the Indian investments were making, and was always open to "continuous support, including new investments" in these firms. Asked if he agreed with the assessment of many experts that there was a valuation bubble building up, Son said in some cases, valuations were rising "little too fast and too big".

"India is increasing in value a little bit quicker than anticipated. But this is still the beginning of the internet revolution, and I’m very happy with our family companies’ progress," he said.

"Some kind of correction will always happen. But it depends on the specific companies. Some companies are still growing very quickly, and justify the valuations. But some are inflated. But who is right and wrong, will be proven five or 10 years later," said the diminutive and soft-spoken tycoon in the course of the nearly hour-long interview. Son is Japan’s secondrichest man with an estimated personal fortune of $14.1 billion.

India’s Internet economy had the potential to "leapfrog very quickly" because it had mobile internet as its foundation. "In the case of China, it took Alibaba 15 years to come to this level because that was mostly PC internet. But today, it’s mostly smartphones and mobile Internet. That can have much more number of people participate at much lower cost and people can use it 24 hours."

NOT LOOKING AT TELECOM SECTOR

Son, one of the world’s early Internet entrepreneurs who is famous for sometimes setting outlandish goals – "my style is to have a big vision, a big commitment" – said the Internet was his main passion.

"Renewables is part of social responsibility, but the information revolution is the only main thing I am interested in," he said, as he played down the possibility of Soft-Bank, a major player in the telecom business in Japan and the US, also looking at India’s telecom sector.

He said India’s telecom sector already had "enough number of players", and when suggested that the market was ripe for a consolidator in the form of SoftBank, Son added with a laugh: "I am busy now."

Another abiding passion of Son is robots, but unlike others who view them as mere tools to boost productivity, he sees them more as companions for human beings, able to emote, educate and entertain. Soft-Bank unveiled Pepper, a humanoid robot last week in Japan and plans to soon make these commercially available. "I would say in 30 years, the number of robots would be more than the number of humans," said Son, who holds nearly 100 patents in Pepper and speaks about it like a doting parent.

Son also had nice things to say about Nikesh Arora, the former Google top executive who he hired last year to head SoftBank’s international arm and anointed as his eventual successor and President last month. Son said he had started thinking about Arora, who is Indiaborn, while negotiating business deals with Google. "When you negotiate a deal, you clearly know a lot about the other person. While dealing with Google, Nikesh impressed me because he’s so smart, is trustworthy and has a good heart. He also tries to find a win-win."