Walmart has reportedly paid $1.4 billion for a larger stake in Indian eCommerce firm Flipkart.
The retailer made that purchase in recent days from investment management group Tiger Global, Bloomberg News reported Monday (July 31), citing a letter to investors. That letter values Flipkart at $35 billion, down from $38 billion in a 2021 funding round.
A separate report from the Economic Times says Walmart also purchased venture capital outfit Accel’s 1% stake in Flipkart. Between the two purchases, Walmart now owns 77% of Flipkart, up from 72%.
A spokesperson from Walmart told PYMNTS, “We remain confident in the future of Flipkart and are even more positive about the opportunity in India today than when we first invested. We continue to be impressed with Flipkart’s progress and remain focused on building a healthy, sustainable and profitable business for the long term, ensuring Flipkart continues to grow in an emerging and dynamic market.”
The news comes as Walmart and rival Amazon are working to boost their presence in India. Walmart is counting on the country — more to the point, on Flipkart and payments provider PhonePe — to help it achieve its goal of doubling its overseas gross merchandise volume to $200 billion in five years.
“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 last month.
As PYMNTS has written, the retailer leads Amazon in eCommerce sales in India due to Flipkart — which it purchased a majority stake in for $16 billion in 2018 — where it enjoys a 48% share of the market.
It’s a rare victory for Walmart in that battle, as Amazon continually leads in the eCommerce category in the U.S.
“With Amazon accounting for an estimated 48% of U.S. retail spend compared to Walmart’s 7%, it is evident who takes the eCommerce crown,” PYMNTS wrote in June. “Quarter-over-quarter between Q1 2022 and Q1 2023, Amazon increased its share of eCommerce spend from 43.7% to 47.9%, representing growth of more than 4 percentage points. During the same period, Walmart rose from 5.7% to 6.7%.”
This month has also seen Flipkart extending its reach beyond eCommerce, teaming up with Axis Bank to introduce a digitally enabled personal loan offering.
Walmart also announced earlier this year that Flipkart’s discounted resale product app Shopsy had seen growth both in numbers and geographical expansion across India, with 175 million downloads.
Amazon, meanwhile, has said it plans to invest $26 billion in India by 2030, per comments from CEO Andy Jassy last month. That followed earlier announcements that Amazon Web Services would invest $12.9 billion in the country. Amazon has also pledged a $6.5 billion investment to boost its Indian eCommerce business.
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