Ahead of Jeff Bezos visit, Amazon pumps in Rs 1,715 crore into India units

Fresh investment comes at a time when CCI has ordered an investigation against Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart on complaints of deep discounting practices and tie-ups with preferred sellers

Ahead of Jeff Bezos’ visit, the world’s largest online retailer Amazon.com Inc has stepped up its investment in India. The Seattle-headquartered firm has pumped in a total investment of Rs 1,715 crore into its digital payments arm Amazon Pay (India) Pvt Ltd and Amazon Wholesale (India) Pvt Ltd.

The funding is expected to help Amazon tap India’s booming digital payments market, compete with Walmart-owned PhonePe, Alibaba-backed Paytm, and Google’s mobile payment service Google Pay. The funding would also help it to take on its rival Flipkart with whom the company is in a fierce battle for dominance in India’s online retail market.

Amazon Pay (India) allotted 135.50 crore equity shares of Rs 10 each aggregating to Rs 1,355.00 crore at par on rights basis to the existing shareholders of the company, according to the regulatory documents filed by Amazon, which were sourced from business signals platform Paper.vc. Also, Amazon Wholesale (India) Pvt. Ltd., allotted 36 crore equity shares of Rs 10 each aggregating to Rs 360 crore to the same existing shareholders of the firm on rights basis. The resolution for this capital infusion was passed by the board of directors of both the entities from December 30-31, 2019..

When Walmart got a $10 billion Phone Pe surprise after buying Flipkart

PhonePe has grown into one of India’s leading digital payments companies

At the point when Walmart Inc paid $16 billion for control of India’s web based business pioneer Flipkart Online Services Pvt a year ago, the American retail goliath got a little-saw computerized installments auxiliary as a major aspect of the arrangement. Presently the business is rising as one of the nation’s top new businesses, an unexpected advantage for Walmart from its biggest ever securing.

Flipkart’s board as of late approved the PhonePe Pvt Ltd. unit to turn into another substance and investigate raising $1 billion from outside financial specialists at a valuation of as much as $10 billion, as indicated by individuals acquainted with the issue, asking not to be named in light of the fact that the exchanges are private. The subsidizing may shut in the following couple of months, in spite of the fact that the discussions are not concluded and terms could even now change, they said. The unit would then end up autonomous with a particular financial specialist base, in spite of the fact that Walmart-possessed Flipkart would remain an investor. Walmart and Flipkart didn’t react to messages looking for input.

PhonePe – which signifies “on the telephone” in Hindi and is articulated “telephone pay” – has developed into one of India’s driving advanced installments organizations. Its volume and estimation of exchanges have generally quadrupled over the previous year as the nation’s shoppers receive the innovation to move cash carefully to organizations and one another. PhonePe is making strides on Paytm, which leads the field and is sponsored by Warren Buffett…