Walmart is paying $16 billion for a controlling stake in India’s giant online retailer Flipkart, breaking into a fast-growing economy where it has struggled to establish a foothold.
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Online sales have exploded in India over the past couple years. Walmart and Amazon have been fighting hard to catch up to Flipkart. Its delivery drivers, with their motorcycles and oversized backpacks, have become ubiquitous across the nation of 1.3 billion people. Online sales totaled $19.6 billion in India in 2017, according to a Forrester report, and are expected to grow far larger in 2018.
Walmart said Wednesday that it will own approximately 77 percent of Flipkart.
The founders of Flipkart, former Amazon employees Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, will own a piece of the rest.
