News

Flipkart is looking at adding content to its portal Major e-commerce and retail players, including Paytm, Future Group and Flipkart, are set to invest close to $100 million in procuring and incorporating entertainment content, in a bid to take on  Amazon  India. According to sources, Paytm, which recently announced a host of new features in ‘Inbox’, its in-app messaging service, including live TV, news, cricket, entertainment videos and games, is planning to invest close to $30 million in this sector. Kishore Biyani-led Future Group is planning to make significant investments in creating a separate entertainment vertical on the company’s various apps and has set aside close to $14.5 billion for on-boarding artificial intelligence and machine learning on its platform to support entertainment content. It is also in talks with various entertainment content providers as well as movie theatre chains to provide tickets online as well as offline. Article Source :...

Last month, the tax department had written to Walmart saying that the US company can seek guidance about the tax liability under Section 195 (2) of the I-T Act E-commerce major Flipkart has shared 'some details' with the I-T authorities on its USD 16 billion deal with US-based Walmart, but the tax department will act only after regulatory approvals have been obtained, an official said. The department is currently studying the details received from the company, the official said, adding that they can issue notices seeking details of taxes withheld once the transactions are completed. Last month, the tax department had written to Bentonville -Arkansas based Walmart saying that the US company can seek guidance about the tax liability under Section 195 (2) of the I-T Act. Under Section 195 of the Act, anyone making payment to non-residents is required to deduct tax (commonly known as withholding tax). The official said Flipkart has filed "some details...

The sale of Flipkart is not just the sale of one company. It is the beginning of a new tomorrow. It is just that one cannot be sure whether that tomorrow will be better for India than today When Carl Douglas McMillon, president and chief executive officer of Walmart Inc, arrives at the Embassy Tech Village headquarters of Flipkart in Bengaluru later on Wednesday to acquire India’s first-to-a-billion-dollars-startup, he will be accompanied by Walmart International’s Judith McKenna and CEO (commerce) Marc Lore. It will be a triumphal return to India for the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer which will be partnering Google’s parent Alphabet Inc in a deal estimated at $18-20 billion enterprise value – Walmart will own about 60 per cent stake, and Alphabet will get to own about 15 per cent of the online market place. The passage of the past five years has obviously dulled memories. All recent media reports seem to have conveniently glossed over the history of Walmart’s prev...

A minority stake in BookMyShow to give Flipkart a play in the fast-growing online ticketing space and also an access to a high-spending loyal customer base Amid competition from deep-pocketed global players like Alibaba, India’s leading online ticketing platform BookMyShow is looking for a backing in its space from Flipkart, the country’s largest internet company. While  Flipkart BookMyShow Deal  has been one of the few profitable internet companies in India, with a profit of Rs 3.1 crore on a revenue of Rs 248 crore in the year that ended March 2016, competition from rivals like Paytm has caused sales growth to slow. To shield itself from cash-burning rivals, BookMyShow will sell a minority stake to Flipkart, a behemoth with a cash reserve of $4 billion. For the e-commerce major, a stake in BookMyShow will give it a play in the fast-growing online ticketing space and also an access to a high-spending loyal customer base. Also Read :  Latest Current ...

Flipkart has been and will continue to make acquisitions to increase scale India's top e-commerce firm   Flipkart   has raised $1.4 billion in its biggest fundraising to date as it takes on US tech giant   Amazon.com   Inc for a larger share of the country's burgeoning online retail market. Chinese social media and entertainment firm Tencent Holdings Ltd, the world's biggest software company Microsoft Corp and online marketplace eBay Inc participated in the funding round, Flipkart said in a statement on Monday, which will value the Indian company at $11.6 billion. That is lower than the $15 billion valuation achieved at its last fundraising in 2015, reflecting how competition has intensified in the e-commerce sector as companies vie for a slice of the world's fastest-growing internet services market. Amazon last year said it would invest over $5 billion in India, and has recently expanded into online video and grocery shopping, seeking to expand aggressiv...

Founders forego salary Once a success story of the burgeoning start-up ecosystem, Gurgaon-based online marketplace   Snapdeal   on Wednesday said it would cut more jobs, stop paying its founders and sell its digital wallet FreeCharge. Co-founder Kunal Bahl, in an email to employees on Wednesday, finally accepted tough decisions— including letting go of people and a full pay cut for him— are being taken. It has also put on sale FreeCharge and is in talks with Naspers, the South Africa-based internet group, to sell it for $300 million. “We are combining teams, reducing layers, eliminating non-core projects and strengthening the focus on profitable growth. Sadly, we will also be saying really painful goodbyes to some of our colleagues in this process. This is, by far, the hardest decision we have ever taken,” said Bahl. Though the company refused to divulge the exact number of people to be sacked, sources close to the development said 800 employees would be laid off o...

In this Sep 2016 interview with   Business Standard , Bansal said firm was all about team work Latest News   : In September 2016, after growth slowed in the first six monthsof the year, the e-commerce companies in the country were gearing up for the festive season that would see big sales. Leading the pack was Flipkart, the largest Indian e-commerce firm. In a telephonic interview with   Business Standard 's   Alnoor Peermohamed ,   Binny Bansal, the then CEO of Flipkart , had said the e-commerce giant was neither run him nor by Kalyan Krishnamurthy, the Tiger Global executive who has now been appointed the CEO of Flipkart. The e-commercemajor was all about team work, Bansal had said. Bansal had also said that the company had 100 million users. This growth occurred despite competition from the international e-commerce giant Amazon becoming aggressive in India.   T he task now was to convert the 100 million to shop every month on its platform, even a...

At townhall, Sachin Bansal concedes that Flipkart missed targets India’s largest e-commerce marketplace Flipkart has seengrowth stagnate and has come under pressure from global rival Amazon for the past year and a half. While the company has on many occasions tried to bury media reports on layoffs and high-level exits, in a rather frank discussion with employees on Friday co-founder   Sachin Bansal   admitted that the company has indeed missed targets. Bansal, in a townhall meeting with around 200 employees at Flipkart’s headquarters in Bengaluru, addressed their concerns over recent layoffs by saying that even the top management was not exempt from scrutiny over performance, including himself. Bansal who stepped down as the CEO of Flipkart in January this year, said that the move was “performance linked”. The frankness of the co-founder might be a rare occasion where top executives at large companies news   admit to their failures, but it’s also the first time ...

Flipkart buys Jabong, beats out Snapdeal, Future Group Flipkart-owned   online fashion   retailer Myntra has acquired smaller rival   Jabong   as it looks to strengthen its portfolio in the high-margin online fashion retail space. The move comes at a time when rival Amazon is pumping in billions of dollars to have a run at becoming the leader in India’s fledgling   e-commerce   space. Snapdeal   – which competes directly with   Flipkart   – large-format retail giant   Future Group , Aditya Birla owned Online shopping and fashion store. Shop the latest fashion trends online |   abof.com   and others were also in the running to acquire Jabong. The company in a statement said the deal will further strengthen its position as the “leader in fashion and lifestyle segment” in India. It did not disclosing the financial details of the deal. “Fashion and lifestyle is one of the biggest drivers of ecommerce growth in India. We hav...

IPL viewership on Hotstar doubles in 2016   STAR India’s online video streaming platform Hotstar has more than double its reach (unique viewers) for IPL in the past one year. For all the games played until the play-offs (between April 9 and May 22), 80 million people used the service, compared with 35 million a year ago. The cash-rich   Twenty20   tournament came under STAR India’s digital ambit in 2014 when it was made available on   starsports.com . Last year, Hotstar was introduced, helping viewers see the tournament on the new app. The network seems to be on track to achieve the target of reaching100 million IPL viewers this year. “We have seen the adoption of Hotstar as primary screen increase significantly among the urban affluent youth. At 80 million (unique) viewers before the play-offs, I expect the platform to add another 15 to 20 million in reach over the last leg of the tournament,” says Ajit Mohan, CEO, Hotstar, STAR India. Total IPL watch t...

InMobi, a fledgling mobile ad network back in 2011, was out in the market to raise $25 million when Japanese investor  Softbank  decided to sink $200 million for a 35 per cent stake in the company. The firm jumped at the opportunity, took the money, and expanded rapidly. Three years later, in 2014, Softbank wrote down a majority of its investment. BACK TO BASICS 92%  VCs believe valuations for series B, C and D rounds will drop 62%  investors believe exit valuations will come down this year 92%  believe more strategic investors will do deals this year 46%  VCs believe that there will be increased focus on profitability this year 70%  VCs believe the seed stage will see the most activity in the current year Source: VCCircle PE-VC Outlook Survey 2016 Show full article

India’s largest online e-commerce firm Flipkart on Monday announced that co-founder Binny Bansal would be its new chief executive officer, while incumbent Sachin Bansalwould be elevated as the firm’s executive chairman.  Read Articles