Latest update: Walmart has acquired more than 70% stake in Flipkart in one of the largest acquisitions in the e-commerce segment. Walmart will not control not only Flipkart but also Myntra and Jabong including associated digital properties.
Walmart is all set to take over Flipkart. There are unconfirmed reports that Walmart CEO Doug MacMillian has arrived in India. Just like Amazon.in, the Bentonville-owned Walmart is all set to start its own exclusive e-commerce store in India under the domain name – walmart.in. We verified the whois information and the company had registered the domain name way back in 2012 itself.
The company updated the domain details on May 7, 2018, and will expire on July 7, 2019. The rumor assumes great significance with the fact that the company updated few data on the whois records just four days back.
Registered with MarkMonitor, the whois data carries the name Diane Johnsson as the registrant, administrative and technical contact. The data mentions the address as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc, 702 S.W. 8th Street, Bentonville, AR, 72716-0520.
As you can see above, the email address is mentioned under the domain wal-mart.com but it redirects to walmart.com, which is the online store of the company in the US. we expect that Walmart won’t start its own e-commerce store and will retain Flipkart. However, the company will start its own store by the end of 2018 after completion of all the legal formalities including GST.
Going forward, we can expect closing down of Flipkart.com to pave way for Walmart.in. You should accept this fact only with a pinch of salt since there is no official confirmation.
Based on the available rumors, it’s clear that Flipkart is getting acquired by Walmart. Hence, the US-based company would be keen to start the business using its own domain. Flipkart now has a robust warehousing and logistics mechanism in place and hence it will be easy for Walmart to kick-start its own e-commerce business.
We previously reported that the Flipkart-Walmart merger will be finalized by the end of this week. There are reports that Walmart CEO Doug McMillon along with senior executives is coming down to India to finalize the deal and announce the merger. Doug will meet Union Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu to discuss the deal.
With over 75 percent stake, Walmart will acquire a whole chunk of business. Sachin Bansal will leave the company after selling all his stakes, while Binny Bansal will continue. Kalyan will continue to lead the new team.
After the deal, Walmart will push money to Flipkart just like Amazon is doing currently. There will be no changes to Flipkart in the imminent future.
Note: The above article is based on my assumptions and rumors.
