Flipkart India has burnt $1.1 billion in cash between February and July this year.
The e-commerce major, majority controlled by Walmart Inc., saw its cash and cash equivalents fall from $2.2 billion at the end of January 2022 to $1.1 billion at the end of second quarter ended July 31, according to disclosures made available by its parent.
Walmart said the cash will be used by Flipkart for its operations.
In the financial year ended Jan. 31, Flipkart received $3.2 billion in mostly new equity funding. That reduced Walmart's ownership to 75% as on Jan. 31 from about 83% a year earlier. The retailer, however, did not disclose the financials of the India e-commerce arm.
Flipkart recently ended its 'The Big Billion Days' sales which saw over one billion customer visits, including over four million first-time buyers, the company said.
PhonePe Moving Towards IPO
Flipkart's fintech platform PhonePe, with nearly 49% market share in the UPI space, saw monthly transactions of $3.1 billion, said Judith McKenna, president and chief executive officer at Walmart International, during the second quarter earnings call. PhonePe had an annualised total payment value of $830 billion in the second quarter compared with $770 billion in the previous three months.
The fintech arm is now looking at merchant services.
''I think what's really encouraging with the way they are approaching this space is they are looking not only at payments but also at merchant services, and that two-sided network is an important part of that," said McKenna. "But equally starting to expand into financial service as well with a real focus at the moment on insurance and pushing that.''
''If you look at the largest digital payments companies outside of China and the world, PhonePe after a very brief history is already roughly two-thirds of the size of that and what is going to be the largest market in the world in a very short period of time,'' said John David Rainey, chief financial officer and executive vice president at Walmart Inc.
PhonePe moved its domicile from Singapore to India ahead of its plans to come out with an initial public issue.
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