Flipkart’s wholesale arm receives Rs 1,616 Cr from parent
The last round of fund infusion for the wholesale entity was in January 2019 when it received about $201 million (Rs 1,431 crore) from Flipkart Private Ltd, Singapore.
The wholesale arm of Flipkart received a fresh infusion of Rs 1,616 crore from its Singapore based parent entity – Flipkart Private limited, documents filed with Registrar of Companies (RoC) revealed. This is the first round of fund infusion for Flipkart India Ltd, which operates the wholesale business for the Walmart-owned ecommerce marketplace in India, in this financial year.
The latest round of cash pumping also comes at a time when the Indian market is set to witness the festive season of Dussehra – Diwali - New Year.
Flipkart Group CEO, Kalyan Krishnamurthy
As per the RoC filings, Flipkart allotted 4,64,403 equity shares to its Singapore parent entity at Rs 34,800 per share that includes a premium of Rs 34,799 on each share.
The fund infusion also comes at a time when Flipkart is getting ready to kick off this year's Big Billion Days sale from September 29 to October 2. Rival Amazon has also put up a dedicated landing page for the Great Indian Festival sale but hasn't announced the dates yet.
Both the ecommerce giants are expected to bring their best for customers, especially at a time when slowing consumption forces customers to be more price sensitive.
Recently, Flipkart also announced a Hindi language platform as part of its strategy to expand in Tier II, III, and IV markets to serve the next 200 million internet users in India.
It has also onboarded nearly 27,000 'kirana' shops across 700 cities to strengthen its pan-India supply chain ahead of the festive season.
For FY18, the wholesale entity posted a 39 percent rise in revenue to Rs 21,658 crore from Rs 15,569 crore in the previous fiscal. The wholesale business unit, however, saw its net loss widening nine-fold to Rs 2,065 crore. In the fiscal year 2017, it had reported a net loss of Rs 244 crore.
(Edited by Saheli Sen Gupta)
