Flipkart, the Indian eCommerce company controlled by Walmart, is postponing hiring as it fights off intense competition from Amazon and Reliance.
In an interview with The Financial Times that was published on Saturday, CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy stated that his company was moving away from the spending spree that saw it spend over $500 million on a range of different industries.
This M&A involves He said, “We’ve stopped, or we’ve taken a break.” As a company, we’ve decided that over the next one to two years, we will ensure that these big investments we make see a lot of customer adoption before moving on to the next wave of M&As, the firm added.
As was noted at the time, Walmart has the chance to raise its investment in Flipkart’s Indian company because it is one of the largest retailers in the world. Walmart made a $16 billion investment in the company in 2018, gaining a 77% stake. The company expected that Flipkart may go public four years later that year.
India has been an important battleground in Walmart’s eCommerce conflict with Amazon because of its 1.4 billion inhabitants and steady rise in internet penetration to 47% after years in the single-digit range.
Additionally, Meta Platforms entered the race this year by collaborating with Indian eCommerce company JioMart to allow customers to buy goods via a Meta WhatsApp discussion. Since 2020, Reliance Technology, the company that owns Jio, has worked with Meta.
Krishnamurthy claimed that India’s eCommerce market was large and vibrant enough to accommodate large competitors despite the presence of two tech giants and a retail goliath, telling the Financial Times that the sector is still “vibrant, given the size of the market.”
