By Siddharth Cavale
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Walmart’s Flipkart marketplace and PhonePe payments business in India could represent $100 billion businesses backed by strong growth, the retailer’s chief financial officer told an investor conference on Wednesday .
Walmart doesn’t detail sales of Flipkart and PhonePe, but in recent months executives have named the two companies key drivers in reaching its goal of doubling the gross volume of goods it sells in overseas markets to 200. billion dollars in five years.
Walmart’s international chief previously called India’s population of 1.4 billion a “significant” opportunity for the retailer.
In its most recent quarter ended April 30, Walmart said its Flipkart business generated double-digit sales growth, spurred by new shoppers in select cities and a 50% increase in ad sales. Flipkart was valued at over $40 billion in 2022 and ranks among India’s most valuable startups.
Walmart also called PhonePe’s performance “truly impressive” after achieving an annualized payment value of $1 trillion through the Unified Payments Interface, a popular method in India for making instant real-time payments. .
PhonePe controlled 46% of the payments market in December, according to the National Payments Corporation of India, and has 400 million registered users. In March, Walmart gave the company a boost by dropping another $200 million at a pre-money valuation of $12 billion, cementing its position as India’s most valuable payments startup.
“It’s not crazy to think that these two companies could be worth $100 billion in the future,” Walmart CFO John David Rainey said.
(Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)