Walmart CFO: India’s Flipkart and PhonePe Could Be Worth $100 Billion

Could Walmart’s Indian eCommerce and payments operations become $100 billion businesses?

The retailer’s chief financial officer seems to think so, Reuters reported Wednesday (June 14).

The businesses in question — eCommerce platform Flipkart and payments provider PhonePe — have been cited by executives as playing key roles in Walmart’s goal of doubling its overseas gross merchandise volume to $200 billion in five years, according to the report.

“It is not crazy to think that both those businesses could be $100 billion businesses in the future,” Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said at an investors conference Wednesday, per the report.

Walmart International CEO Judith McKenna announced Walmart’s $200 billion goal earlier this month in a speech ahead of the company’s yearly shareholder’s meeting.

“It is a pretty ambitious target,” she said at the time. “The markets that we have today have plans to be able to get there.”

McKenna said she expects Walmart’s growth to come from carrying out its omnichannel strategy on a global scale, scaling marketplaces in the 19 foreign countries where it operates, and creating a complementary business “ecosystem” similar to the one it has in Mexico.

Walmart leads Amazon in eCommerce sales in India thanks to Flipkart’s performance, where it commanded a 48% share of the market.

Earlier this month, Walmart announced that Flipkart’s discounted resale product app Shopsy is growing both in numbers and geographically across India, tripling its number of units, customers and sellers over the past year and has been downloaded 175 million times.

The platform has also expanded geographically, moving into smaller towns in India as well as big cities, a growth that’s been fueled by younger consumers and budget-conscious families.

Shopsy now provides access to more than 150 million products in more than 80 categories, all focused on affordability.

Meanwhile, Walmart helped PhonePe raise $200 million this year, keeping the company’s valuation at $12 billion.

PhonePe was founded in 2015 and was acquired by Flipkart the following year. The two companies ended their relationship by mutual consent in 2022, although Walmart remains the majority shareholder for both firms.