E-commerce giant Flipkart and PhonePe on Friday announced the full ownership separation of the digital payments platform, setting the two businesses to chart their own paths and unlocking enterprise value for shareholders.
A partial separation was announced in December 2020. The PhonePe Group was acquired by the Flipkart Group in 2016 and is now India's largest digital payments platform. The company has more than 400 million registered users and more than one in four Indians avail of its services.
Flipkart and PhonePe are proud, homegrown Indian brands with a user base upwards of 400 million each, said Sameer Nigam, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of PhonePe. We are looking forward to the next phase of our growth as we invest in new businesses – like insurance, wealth management and lending, while also enabling the next wave of growth for UPI payments in India. This will help propel our vision to provide billions of Indians with financial inclusion.
Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart Group, said his company has developed successful entrepreneurs and seen impactful businesses started by former employees.
We are confident PhonePe will continue to scale and achieve its vision of providing financial inclusion to millions of Indians, said Krishnamurthy. Flipkart stays committed to its purpose to empower every Indian's dream by delivering value through innovation in technology and commerce while helping small businesses connect to pan-India markets.
Existing Flipkart Singapore and PhonePe Singapore shareholders, led by Walmart, have purchased shares directly in PhonePe India.