Walmart Dedicates $2.5B To Tap India's Budding E-Commerce And Payments Market: Report

• Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) reportedly earmarked over $2.5 billion in India as the retailer doubled down on the opportunities to tap India's e-commerce and payments markets amid macro headwinds.

• In January, Walmart spent about $780 million in taxes after PhonePe, in which the retailer owns a majority stake, moved its domicile to India from Singapore, TechCrunch reports.

• Walmart looks to invest $200 million - $300 million in PhonePe's ongoing funding round.

• Also Read: Competition Intensifies For India's Digital Payments Market: Amazon India Poaches WhatsApp Pay India Head

• The report adds that Walmart, which owns a majority stake in Flipkart, eyes spending $1.5 billion to buy back the e-commerce firm's shares from early backers Tiger Global and Accel Partners.

• India, the second-largest internet market, became a critical overseas market for Walmart and Amazon.Com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN).

• Flipkart leads the e-commerce market in India, the report cited Bernstein. And PhonePe commands over 40% of all transactions on UPI, a payments network in India. UPI, which processes over 7 billion monthly transactions, is the most popular way Indians pay online.

• Last year, Amazon faced a setback in the country after India's largest retail giant, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), outplayed the American firm in securing retailer Future Group's assets.

• Amazon called the February takeover of 835 Future Retail stores by Mukesh Ambani's conglomerate Reliance a "sham transaction."

• Price Action: WMT shares traded higher by 0.44% at $142.97 on the last check Thursday.

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This article originally appeared on Benzinga.com

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