Walmart Inc. will soon enter into a deal with one of the largest e-commerce company of India, Flipkart. According to people associated to the matter, the deal will signed in the upcoming two days. The deal costs around $12 Billion. The main investors of Flipkart Online Services Pvt will be purchasing items from Walmart. Previously, an argument had happened with Amazon Inc. regarding the secrecy of matter. The sources also added that Tiger Global Management will be spending 20% stake in Flipkart and SoftBank Group Corp. about 20%. Walmart may get 60-80% of Flipkart which will be approximately around $20billion.
Walmart Flipkart Deal Issues
A number of issues are still to be resolved before the deal finalizes. Some of them are if the business will be led by the founders, what amount is being spent by the investors and what will be the final stake by Walmart. There are two possibilities of either the stake falling or the terms changing.
If the deal is finalised Walmart will get hold into a market of 1.3 billion. Though Arkansas-based, Bentonville is one of the most prominent retailers in the world, it had to tussle with Amazon in the online market. In the matters of markets, India ranks just after America and China. Gradually foreign retailers are making place in India beating Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
The senior forecast analyst at Forrester Research Inc. from New Delhi, Satish Meena said, “There isn’t another country with this kind of an opportunity.” It was furher added, “India may not be a big deal now, but it’s the future opportunity that Walmart and Amazon are eyeing.” Walmart refused to make any comments, while Flipkart refrained from requests too. The shares of Walmarts had dropped for 1% to 86.16 at 10:16am in New York. The ones for Amazon showed some altered value at $1528.33.
Both Walmart and Amazon would make efficient partners for Flipkart, but it chose to partner with Walmart. This was so because Walmart doesn’t have any significant problems in the online market while Amazon is the second largest online marketers in India and rivals to Flipkart. Walmart has also been supported by the founders of Flipkart, Sachin and Binny Bansal. Walmart had been thriving to make up a market in India since the previous year.
Amazon’s market
Amazon is expanding its market in India at a faster speed. The founder, Jeff Bezos aims at getting $5.5 billion from India, while the local chief Amit Agarwal is making strategies based on the local conditions. These factors have been helping Amazon to grow its market in India. Amazon had lost its market in China and aims at making its market strong in India.
Amazon has grown in the Indian market at a faster rate than Flipkart and wants to derail the transactions of Walmart because then it would establish a rival in Indian market. Walmart can help Flipkart in various ways and help it to grow such as financial aids and skills for marketing.
Satish Meena also said, “What Flipkart took a decade to do, Amazon has achieved in half that time. Now Amazon will get ready for the battle ahead, and pump more into investments, particularly in food retailing and fashion.” The $20 billion price tag is much higher than Flipkart’s last year value of $12 billion. Therefore, it will one of the most valuable start-ups in India.
Walmart Flipkart Deal: Stakeholders
SoftBank would be making a slightly higher deal. It had spent about $2.5 billion on previous year’s valuation. However, it is expected that the stake would rise upto $4 billion after Walmart finalises the deal. It would be based on the valuation of Walmart.
SoftBank as well as Tiger Global are considered to be one of the largest stake holders of the startup world. Naspers Ltd from South Africa ranks just below them. If the deal is finalised, it would make an history in the Indian e-commerce.
