Global consumer brands have long been infatuated with Chinese consumers. Now it is India’s shoppers they are after.

It has been a blockbuster year for Indian deals: More foreign money is now pouring into the south Asian nation than into China. Overseas companies have spent $38 billion acquiring Indian assets so far this year, compared with $32 billion in China according to Dealogic data. That overturns a long-term trend—the value of inbound mergers and acquisitions in China had outstripped that in India since at least 2000.

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