Walmart Dedicates $2.5B To Tap India's Budding E-Commerce And Payments Market: Report
Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) reportedly earmarked over $2.5 billion in India as the retailer doubled down on the opportunities to tap India's e-commerce and payments markets amid macro headwinds.
In January, Walmart spent about $780 million in taxes after PhonePe, in which the retailer owns a majority stake, moved its domicile to India from Singapore, TechCrunch reports.
Walmart looks to invest $200 million - $300 million in PhonePe's ongoing funding round.
The report adds that Walmart, which owns a majority stake in Flipkart, eyes spending $1.5 billion to buy back the e-commerce firm's shares from early backers Tiger Global and Accel Partners.
India, the second-largest internet market, became a critical overseas market for Walmart and Amazon.Com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN).
Flipkart leads the e-commerce market in India, the report cited Bernstein. And PhonePe commands over 40% of all transactions on UPI, a payments network in India. UPI, which processes over 7 billion monthly transactions, is the most popular way Indians pay online.
Last year, Amazon faced a setback in the country after India's largest retail giant, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), outplayed the American firm in securing retailer Future Group's assets.
Amazon called the February takeover of 835 Future Retail stores by Mukesh Ambani's conglomerate Reliance a "sham transaction."
Price Action: WMT shares traded higher by 0.44% at $142.97 on the last check Thursday.
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