Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT), two major U.S. retail rivals, are at it again. Amazon may be putting in a last-minute bid to acquire Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce company, according to published reports.
Walmart is already in talks to buy a majority stake in the company. Amazon was in early talks with Flipkart, but the company’s agreement with Walmart is already close to finalisation.
If the Walmart deal goes through, Flipkart could be valued at around US$21bln, Mint reported.
Flipkart, founded by two former Amazon employees Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, has more than 100 million active users, according to its site. Like Amazon, it began as an online bookseller and now sells a wide variety of items from clothing to tech, making 8 million shipments per month.
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"We are a significant market leader, not just in the number of customers we have or the transactions we do, but also in terms of coming up with market-defining themes, creating new businesses, customer segments, geographies," CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy told Business Standard in a March interview.
Flipkart's mobile app surpassed 500 million Indian users in 2016.
The deal would give Walmart, the world’s largest retailer and second-largest employer, an avenue into the retail market of Asia’s third-largest economy.
The Bengaluru-based online retailer has attracted big-name investors before. Hedge fund Tiger Global Management, LLC and venture capital firm Accel were early investors.
In morning trading, Amazon shares were down 2.1% to US$1361.54, while Walmart's stock was flat at US$86.66.