Flipkart marketplace loss narrows in FY18; wholesale unit loss shoots up despite higher revenue

Flipkart Internet Private Ltd, which operates the Flipkart marketplace, narrowed its consolidated loss for the financial year 2018 to Rs 1,160 crore as against a loss of Rs 1,640 crore, documents filed with Registrar of Companies (RoC) showed.

Flipkart posted an operating revenue of Rs 2,790 crore for the financial year 2018, compared with Rs 1,882 crore, registering a growth of around 48 percent.

Group company Flipkart India Private Ltd, which runs the wholesale business, posted a 39 percent rise in revenue to Rs 21,658 crore for FY18, compared with Rs 15,569 crore in the previous fiscal.

Unlike the marketplace unit, the wholesale business unit’s net loss widened nine-fold to Rs 2,065 crore. In the fiscal year 2017, the wholesale unit had reported a net loss of Rs Rs 244 crore. The company attributed the widening of the loss to a rise in employee benefit expenses and finance costs.

YourStory analysis in June showed the wholesale arm of Flipkart was the top revenue earner in the group duing FY17. “While the holding company of Flipkart Group - Flipkart Limited, Singapore - showed total revenue of Rs 20,454 crore for the year ended March 2017, Flipkart’s marketplace generated only 9.2 percent of this. The wholesale arm on the other hand (Flipkart India Private Limited) contributed a whopping 74.6 percent. Myntra Designs contributed another 9.7 percent. The rest was contributed by other companies like Instakart, PhonePe, etc.”

Walmart recently bought 77 percent stake in Flipkart for $16 billion, valuing the company at a whopping $21 billion. In India, Flipkart is locked in an intense battle with the US-based e-tailing giant Amazon with both entities pumping in millions of dollars to garner more market share.

Walmart had earlier said that if it closed the Flipkart acquisition by the end of July, the deal will impact its earnings for the year ending January 2019 by $0.25-0.30 per share and by $0.60 per share for its FY20 earnings.