PhonePe completes separation from Flipkart

Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], December 23 (ANI): Flipkart and PhonePe on Friday announced the full-ownership separation of PhonePe, India’s leading digital payments platform, from the e-commerce giant.

Establishing these businesses as individual entities will allow both to chart their own growth paths, as they continue building industry-leading offerings that provide access and inclusion for Indians, the joint statement of companies said. From starting in 2007 by selling books online, the Flipkart Group pioneered several industry firsts through Flipkart.com, homegrown e-commerce marketplace along with several businesses such as Myntra, Cleartrip, Flipkart Health+ and more, according to the joint statement.

Flipkart said it was focused on providing access through technology and delivering the best online shopping experience for over 450 million Indians, while offering more than 1.1 million sellers.

Sameer Nigam, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, PhonePe, said: “Flipkart and PhonePe are proud, homegrown Indian brands with a user base upwards of 400 million each. We are looking forward to the next phase of our growth as we invest in new businesses – like insurance, wealth management and lending, while also enabling the next wave of growth for UPI payments in India…”

The Flipkart Group acquired the PhonePe Group in 2016. The joint statement claimed that it was today India’s largest digital payments platform. It said over 400 million registered users, more than one in four Indians are now using PhonePe. Since its launch, it said it successfully digitised more than 35 million offline merchants spread across Tier II, III, IV cities.

Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Chief Executive Officer of Flipkart Group, said: “The Flipkart Group has developed many successful entrepreneurs and seen impactful businesses started by former employees. We are proud to see PhonePe grow and thrive as a successful organisation in its own right. We are confident PhonePe will continue to scale and achieve its vision of providing financial inclusion to millions of Indians…”

Existing Flipkart Singapore and PhonePe Singapore shareholders, led by Walmart, have purchased shares directly in PhonePe India. This completes the move to make PhonePe a fully India-domiciled company, a process that started earlier this year. The statement said that retail giant Walmart will remain the majority shareholder of both business groups.