NEW DELHI: Walmart-controlled Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart said on Thursday it was partially spinning off PhonePe to widen the digital payments platform’s access to capital to fuel its growth.
PhonePe, which competes with Alibaba-backed home-grown payments pioneer Paytm and Google Pay, will raise $700 million in primary capital, Bengaluru-based Flipkart said in a statement.
The money will be raised from existing Flipkart investors led by Walmart, giving PhonePe a valuation of $5.5 billion including the fundraising, the statement said.
Flipkart will continue to be PhonePe’s majority shareholder, it added.
“We are really excited to have access to dedicated long-term capital to further our ambitions in the financial services distribution sector as well as creating large innovative growth platforms for India’s micro, small and medium enterprises,” PhonePe CEO Sameer Nigam said.
PhonePe is eyeing profitability by 2022 and a public listing the following year, Nigam has previously said.
The fintech firm has more than 100 million monthly active users which helped it clock nearly one billion digital payment transactions in October.
India’s digital payments market, expected to more than double in size to $135 billion in 2023 from 2019 levels, has also attracted the likes of Amazon.com and Facebook, which have come up with their own systems to woo users.
That rapid growth in fintech has driven India’s flagship payments processor, the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI), to cap the share of digital transactions some companies can account for.
The NPCI’s move, announced last month, is expected to hinder the growth of payments services offered by Facebook, Google and PhonePe, while boosting the likes of Reliance’s Jio Payments Bank and Paytm, which have niche bank licenses.
Walmart’s Flipkart to spin off digital payments business
https://arab.news/6mfc4
Walmart’s Flipkart to spin off digital payments business
- Flipkart will continue to be PhonePe’s majority shareholder
- India’s digital payments market expected to more than double in size to $135 billion in 2023
Closing Bell: Saudi main index closes in red at 11,183
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index dipped on Monday, losing 44.79 points, or 0.4 percent, to close at 11,183.85.
The total trading turnover of the benchmark index was SR4.05 billion ($1.08 billion), as 69 of the listed stocks advanced, while 191 retreated.
The MSCI Tadawul Index decreased, down 6.63 points or 0.44 percent, to close at 1,504.73.
The Kingdom’s parallel market Nomu lost 328.20 points, or 1.36 percent, to close at 23,764.92. This comes as 22 of the listed stocks advanced, while 49 retreated.
The best-performing stock was Maharah Human Resources Co., with its share price surging by 7.26 percent to SR6.50.
Other top performers included Arabian Cement Co., which saw its share price rise by 6.27 percent to SR22.71, and Saudi Research and Media Group, which saw a 4.3 percent increase to SR104.30.
On the downside, the worst performer of the day was Arabian Internet and Communications Services Co., whose share price fell by 8.01 percent to SR207.80.
Jahez International Co. for Information System Technology and Al-Rajhi Co. for Cooperative Insurance also saw declines, with their shares dropping by 5.61 percent and 4.46 percent to SR12.79 and SR75, respectively.
On the announcement front, Etihad Etisalat Co. announced its financial results for 2025 with a 7.9 percent year-on-year growth in its revenues, to reach SR19.6 billion.
In a Tadawul statement, Mobily said that this growth is attributed to “the expansion of all revenue streams, with a healthy growth in the overall subscriber base.”
Mobily delivered an 11.6 percent increase in net profit, reaching SR3.4 billion in 2025 compared to SR3.1 billion in 2024.
The company’s share price reached SR67.85, marking a 0.37 percent increase on the main market.
