There is speculation in the industry that e-commerce giant Amazon will make a rival bid to buy India's e-commerce big player, Flipkart. As per reports, it is expected to counter Walmart's bid, as reported by Mint  in the month of February.  Walmart is in talks to buy 55 percent of Flipkart through a mix of primary and secondary share purchase, valuing Flipkart around $20 billion. There were reports, which said that the the Walmart deal, which is in the final phase, will see Flipkart's valuation rise as much as 70 percent within a year.

Infact, the Walmart and Flipkart deal will reportedly, give the world's largest brick-and-mortar retailer, access to an e-commerce market that Morgan Stanley estimated to be worth $200 billion in a decade's time. It is in fact, a smart strategy by Walmart to take on Amazon.

As quoted in a Reuters report, one person familiar with the development  said that the probability of a deal with Amazon was low, and that any such deal could spark monopoly concerns as Flipkart and Amazon dominate India's e-commerce market. The person declined to be identified as discussions were private. There is however, no official confirmation from any of the parties involved.

Amazon made is entry into the Indian market in 2013 and ever since that the Indian e-commerce space has turned extremely competitive as well as interesting. Flipkart has been on an consolidation mode ever since Amazon's India entry, in 2014, Flipkart acquired Myntra, for an estimated Rs 2,000 crore deal. Then in 2016, Flipkart owned Myntra went on to acquire Jabong for an estimated $70 million.

SoftBank is the largest shareholder in Flipkart with a stake of 23.62 percent. Tiger Global is the second largest with 22.44 per cent of preference share capital. Naspers (MIH B2C Holdings BV) is the third largest with 14.57 per cent of preference share capital. Reportedly,  Amazon's global business has taken a big hit in term of losses in the first nine months of 2017. The primary reason behind the losses are because of some of the big investments made in India. It will be interesting to see, how things turn up in the e-commerce category, with the big players jostling with each other.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 04, 2018 01:15 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).