In what could be the biggest ecommerce merger in India, reports suggest that Flipkart is looking to acquire eBay’s India operations. According to a report on FactorDaily, this is a deal structured as a part of the $2 billion capital Flipkart is raising.
Should this deal go through, Flipkart will race way ahead of Amazon, making it the largest ecommerce player in India.
FactorDaily reports that eBay’s India unit will get merged into Flipkart and in terms of market share, eBay comes at a distant sixth with Flipkart, Amazon and Shopclues leading the race.
It is also interesting to note that eBay saw a change in the helm with its India head Latif Nathani moving back to the US and business head Vidmay Naini taking his place.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that Flipkart raised $1 billion from Microsoft, Tencent and eBay. According to FactorDaily, the fund-raising round will stay open until it reaches $2 billion in total.
This funding will value Flipkart at almost $10 billion. Flipkart has been locking horns with Amazon for years now to capture more market share, with both companies have been going all out to be India’s top ecommerce player.
Flipkart was founded in 2007. Since January 2009, Flipkart has raised nearly $4 billion in 13 rounds of funding. eBay, however, entered the Indian market back in 2004. But it failed to capture market share like Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal and Shopclues did.
However, Flipkart has been seeing markdowns in valuations. Most recently, the Macquarie Group’s Optimum Fund slashed its holding’s value by around 3%. Morgan Stanley, too, slashed Flipkart’s valuation earlier in February for the fifth time, valuing it at $5.37 billion. A mutual fund managed by Fidelity too, marked down Flipkart’s valuation by 36% in November 2016.