Flipkart, PhonePe IPO Could Take Couple of Years, Says Walmart Government

Initial public choices of Walmart’s Flipkart market and PhonePe digital funds platform may take a few years, a Walmart govt stated.

“This is something we’re looking at over the next couple of years,” Walmart’s executive vice president for corporate affairs, Dan Bartlett, said on the sidelines of the company’s shareholder meeting near its Bentonville, Arkansas, headquarters, late on Thursday.

Walmart may put an initial public offering of PhonePe ahead of Flipkart, even though Flipkart is a more mature business, Bartlett told Reuters.

Based in India, PhonePe is “one of many largest fee platforms” in the country, he said. He cited PhonePe’s tie to India’s instant money transfer system, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which allows users to transfer money across multiple banks without disclosing account details.

“There’s numerous a processes that should be put in place earlier than we go public,” Bartlett said, referring to PhonePe. “Obviously the question about the Indian exchange versus others” is “under consideration” for the longer term IPO itemizing, he added.

Walmart’s Flipkart market and PhonePe funds operations in India might be $100 billion (roughly Rs. 8,35,200 crore) companies, buoyed by robust progress, the retailer’s chief monetary officer stated a 12 months in the past at an investor convention.

Executives at the moment cited the 2 companies as key drivers that might assist Walmart meet its goal of doubling the gross merchandise quantity it sells in overseas markets to $200 billion (roughly Rs. 16,70,300 crore) in 5 years.

PhonePe stated in October 2023 that its consolidated income for the monetary 12 months 2023 surged 77 %, as extra clients used its platform to ship and obtain cash in India’s booming digital funds market.

With greater than 490 million registered customers, PhonePe had a close to 51 % share of the worth of transactions on India’s UPI as of March 2023.

© Thomson Reuters 2024