South African Technology Major Naspers has hiked its stake in ecommerce major Flipkart to 16% with an additional investment of $71 million (Rs 458 crore approximately)
VCCircle reports that Naspers’ consolidated financial statements show that it made this investment in April by buying the stake from existing investors. However, it is not know who sold their stake to Naspers.
Naspers, which previously held 16% stake in Flipkart did not participate in a funding round in 2015, which led to its stake being diluted to 15%.
According to the VCCircle report, Naspers’ purchase of the additional stake could have happened before Flipkart raised $1.4 billion from Tencent Holdings, eBay and Microsoft at a valuation of $11.6 billion.
Naspers also said that Flipkart was still the market leader in the Indian e-commerce sector, though rival Amazon had gained market share during the early part of the year.
“The group’s Indian etail associate, Flipkart, remains a large opportunity, with market estimates expecting the online retail market in India to reach $50 billion by 2020,” Naspers said.
The South African company is upbeat about the e-commerce segment, which accounted for nearly 27% of its $14.6 billion revenue and registered an 11% rise, the annual report revealed.
“The group now has 21 profitable businesses in e-commerce, excluding those disposed of during the year, delivering $699 million in revenue and $229 million in trading profits,” it said.
Naspers has been quite active in India with its investments.
Last month, Naspers invested $132 million in Nasdaq-listed MakeMyTrip. After the merger of MakeMyTrip and Ibibo, the biggest in the Indian online travel services sector, Naspers holds a 40% stake in the combined entity.
In May, it led a $80 million Series E round in Swiggy where it invested about $60 million for a 14.8% stake.
Last year, Naspers-owned PayU bought Mumbai-based rival Citrus Pay for $130 million (Rs 865 crore) in one of the largest takeover deals in India’s nascent but rapidly growing fintech sector.