Flipkart’s Loss Narrows By More Than Half In First Year Of Walmart Takeover

Flipkart, which also owns fashion retailers Myntra and Jabong, and PhonePe payments platform, reported a loss of Rs 17,231 crore, or about $2.4 billion, in the year ended March, according to filings with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore. It had reported a loss of Rs 46,901 crore or about $6.7 billion in the previous year.

This was the first full-year financial statement by the company after it was acquired by Walmart in May last year. Flipkart’s rising losses were among the biggest concerns at the time of $16-billion takeover. It’s locked in a battle for supremacy in India’s online retail market with Jeff Bezos-led Amazon.com Inc., which is nearly done investing $5 billion in one of the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce markets.

• Flipkart’s revenue surged 42 percent to Rs 43,615 crore, or $6.14 billion, in FY19.
• Operating loss more than doubled to Rs 12,999 crore in FY19, up from Rs 5,958 crore in the year-ago period.

While both Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal quit last year, Binny still holds around 3.86 percent, the documents showed. Walmart, the controlling shareholder, owns 81.2 percent, followed by Tencent with 5.3 percent stake, and Tiger Global with about 4.9 percent.