Amazon.com may score a rival offer to buy Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart, which is in slow-down talks with Walmart, local media reported, as the two U.S. retail mammoths jostle for dominance in India’s booming online industry.
Amazon expand oned early exploratory talks to buy control of Indian rival Flipkart but a buy with Walmart is more likely, daily newspaper Mint affirmed on Wednesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
One person impudent with the matter told Reuters that the probability of a deal with Amazon was low, and that any such see to could spark monopoly concerns as Flipkart and Amazon dominate India’s e-commerce hawk. The person declined to be identified as discussions were private.
Amazon failed to comment when contacted by Reuters. Flipkart and Walmart did not respond to seeks for comment.
Walmart is in talks to buy over 40 percent of Flipkart in potentially one of its biggest abroad deals, Reuters reported in February. A deal would give the incredible’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer access to an e-commerce market that Morgan Stanley estimated to be significance $200 billion in a decade’s time.
The deal would also mimic a direct challenge to Amazon in Asia’s third-largest economy. Amazon has allotted to investing $5 billion in India as it expands into online grocery liberation.
Walmart will buy a majority stake in Flipkart through a mix of primary and indirect share purchases in a deal that could value the Indian constant at $21 billion, Mint reported.
Flipkart, founded by former Amazon wage-earners Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007, controls nearly 40 percent of India’s online retail retail, ahead of Amazon, showed estimates by researcher Forrester.
Like Amazon abort Jeff Bezos, the pair began by selling books and diversified in less than no time, including by selling smartphones through exclusive flash sales. Flipkart now vies with Amazon on almost all product categories.
Flipkart’s success has captivated a bevy of deep-pocketed and tech-savvy investors including U.S. hedge fund Tiger Universal Management, online marketplace eBay, and software maker Microsoft, as excellently as Chinese technology firm Tencent.
It was valued at around $12 billion when Japan’s SoftBank’s Wraith Fund bought roughly a fifth of the firm last year for $2.5 billion.