“The (Flipkart) business is performing almost as well as we thought. An IPO is still too much for that business. Like everything else, it’s time. Is the business right where you want it? What market is it?” It’s all about understanding what you do with an IPO,” Biggs said at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer and Retail Conference last week. “The IPO and our partners have a share of the business, it has to be a more local business in India – all those things are important to us, long term. And nothing has changed about that.”
Founded in 2007, Flipkart was acquired by Walmart three years ago. It has been weighing IPOs in the US over the past few quarters. The company offers over 150 million products across 80 categories and has a registered customer base of 300 million with an estimated gross business value of $12 billion in FY20.
The Indian e-commerce market is the biggest opportunity in the local internet ecosystem. It is expected to reach $133 billion by 2025 from $24 billion in 2018, a 30% CAGR. Flipkart has leadership in categories like apparel and is twice as big as the nearest competition. Amazon, however, is a leader in mobile and consumer electronics, while Reliance has used its offline footprint to create an early lead by order volume in the e-grocery category.
“Flipkart was expected to list in the US in Q4CY21, with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) as one of the listing options. The proposed SoftBank funding may delay IPO plans for Flipkart. The investment is expected to expand into a rapidly growing India ecommerce market with deep-pocketed competitors – Amazon and Reliance-owned JioMart, according to a report by Bernstein in June.
However, in July, the Bengaluru-based e-commerce major raised $3.6 billion from investors including Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund II, along with its largest shareholder Walmart, with $37.6 billion. on dollar valuation. The funding was Flipkart’s first capital inflow from outside investors since its 2018 acquisition of Walmart, which at the time valued the e-commerce firm at $22 billion. Last year, Flipkart raised $1.2 billion in an internal round led by Walmart at a total valuation of $24.9 billion.
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“Flipkart may not even list in the next 12-18 months as their numbers are weak and may not appeal to Wall Street. Although it was earlier a two-player battle between Flipkart and Amazon, the initial traction in Kirana did not go away. The entry of Reliance has changed the dynamics significantly,” said a senior official familiar with Flipkart’s plans.
In its earnings call last month, Walmart said that Flipkart had another good quarter with strong sales growth and favorable trends in monthly active customers and users. In anticipation of the holiday season, the company doubled fulfillment capacity over the past year with dozens of new fulfillment centers and more than a thousand last-mile distribution centers. It expanded relationships with grocery partners to handle a larger percentage of last-mile deliveries.
“Growth is good. It’s definitely on the road to profitability. We expect that or we won’t get into the business. We’ll continue to invest and take advantage of opportunities to grow that business, not just retail but other Even across regions. PhonePe is a part of that,” Biggs said.