Flipkart made the move in a bid to seek better valuation while it revived talks with American retail giant Walmart for a potential large investment.
Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart reached out to its rival Amazon for a potential sale, according to a report by Mint.
According to the report, Flipkart made a move to seek better valuation while it revived talks with American retail giant Walmart for a potential large investment. In late 2017, Walmart wanted to buy a majority stake in the Bangalore-based company.
The move came less than a year after Flipkart’s chairman said there was a need to follow the Chinese example of promoting local companies over foreign ones.
Initial talks between Flipkart and Walmart had stalled in late 2016. Flipkart had then went on to raise USD 3 billion in rounds of funding from SoftBank, Tencent, Microsoft and others to take on Amazon.
It remains to be seen if a potential deal between Flipkart and Amazon would draw attention of the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
Also read: Amazon may counter Walmart's bid for Flipkart in a bid to gain e-commerce dominance India
Reports on Wednesday suggested that the Jeff Bezos-led company may make a bid for Flipkart even as Walmart was in advanced level of talks to purchase a 55 percent-stake in Flipkart through a mix of primary and secondary share purchases, in a deal that could be valued at USD 21 billion. Moneycontrol couldn’t independently verify the report.
Amazon trails Flipkart by a small margin in India's ecommerce space and if the talks go through, Amazon stands to gain dominance in the segment. A successful bid will likely give Amazon a deeper reach in Indian markets. Amazon may also gain from Flipkart-led fashion e-tailers Jabong and Myntra, the Indian arm of e-Bay and financial technology company PhonePe.