Flipkart Group had acquired about 66 per cent share of the all round festive GMV this year. Image: Reuters
Walmart-owned Flipkart’s initial public supplying (IPO) is a specific factor but how quickly it would be on the horizon is a matter that has often kept the Indian startup ecosystem and its stakeholders on tenterhooks. After all, Flipkart has been the e-commerce poster boy in India’s journey towards digitisation of at least its customer-facing services. Talks about Flipkart’s IPO have been taking place for the previous couple of years in the backdrop of diverse developments at the organization even as it counts the listing occasion as portion of its extended-term tactic. “An initial public offering has always been part of Flipkart’s long-term strategy. However, the focus at present is on growth and democratising commerce in India through technology, while continuing to unlock customer value, Walmart-owned e-commerce company told TheSpuzz Online in a statement.
“The biggest areas of investment for Flipkart will continue to be in technology, operations, and new capabilities,” it added. Flipkart has reiterated its concentrate in the statement from final year when media reports about its feasible 2022 listing in the US had surfaced. The most recent statement came amid enterprise newspaper Mint’s report on Flipkart hiring Goldman Sachs to discover an IPO in the US to raise about $10 billion citing individuals conscious of the matter. Walmart, itself, had stated in a May 9, 2018 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it may well take Flipkart public in 4 years (about 2022) at a valuation no significantly less than what it invested in Flipkart. Walmart had acquired 77 per cent of Flipkart for $16 billion to take on arch-rival Amazon.
Earlier this year, Walmart’s Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs speaking at the UBS Global Consumer & Retail Conference in March had stated in response to a query that “Yes, we’ve talked about longer-term that IPO is a potential for that business. I can tell you, it runs pretty independently right now and that’s when you buy a business like that, that’s what you want it to do.”
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Flipkart had driven the international net sales for Walmart’s Q3 ended in October 2021. “Strong growth in net sales at Flipkart was helped by a record number of monthly active customers,” Walmart had stated final month announcing the quarterly benefits. Its net sales went up 1.3 per cent year-on-year to $29.6 billion in the August-October period. During the current festive month of mid-October to mid-November 2020, Flipkart Group, like PhonePe and Myntra, had emerged as the best e-commerce marketplace with about 66 per cent share of the all round gross merchandise worth (GMV) worth $8.3 billion, according to a RedSeer report. Jeff Bezos Amazon’s India enterprise, on the other hand, had cornered 34 per cent share. The festive month saw all round on the net sales up 65 per cent from the year-ago sales worth $5 billion.