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Tag: Flipkart

  • Network18 Digital Strikes a Fashion Chord: Launches ‘India Ka Fashion Capital’

    Network18 Digital Strikes a Fashion Chord: Launches ‘India Ka Fashion Capital’

    MUMBAI: Network 18 Digital expands its gamut of original digital shows with the announcement of its new chic offering – India Ka Fashion Capital, powered by Flipkart Fashion and produced by Firstpost Studio. The upcoming show aims to storm the world of fashion, style and glamour. It features a cutting edge concept which revolves around exploring breakthrough fashion trends and their genesis. Ira Dubey, the host takes to the streets of Indian cities to discover how they contribute to the fashion scene of the country.

    The digital series will not only show the current fashion trends in Indian cities but will also dig deeper into the evolution of those trends that influence Indian styles. Presented in a five part series of 8 – 10 minutes each, the captivating episodes will be shown in a documentary format thereby establishing a stronger connect with the audience.

     The show promises to reveal facts that will fascinate even the most ardent fashionistas.  It will share exciting and unknown trivia such as – the name of a popular clothing style ‘dungaree’ originated from the area of Dongri in Mumbai, costumes of the sensational series Game of Thrones came from Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar and more such riveting facts which further makes the show engaging and enthralling.

    Commenting on the new show, Azim Lalani, Business Head of English General News Cluster, Network 18 said, “Our priority has always been to engage a diverse set of audience with strong, original and one-of-its-kind content. Our offerings to our viewers are accentuated by effective collaborations with brands such as Flipkart. It’s a two-way association where our content significantly highlights the brands’ efforts and assists them with achieving their communication goals. For Flipkart’s India Ka Fashion Capital we have creatively reinforced the platform’s standing as one-stop-destination for all things fashion. Along with delivering an innovative marketing solution to the brand we are sharing excellent content for our discerning audience that diligently follows fashion trends. The unique show also adds to our repertoire of path-breaking digital offerings.”

    Sharing his perspective on the show, Sushanth Ravikumar, Associate Director – Brand Marketing, Flipkart said, “India’s local fashion markets play an integral role in molding the country’s fashion culture. Flipkart aims to recreate and improve on the best aspects of these markets. This web series explores what makes Flipkart Fashion ‘India Ka Fashion Capital’ in a manner that is genuinely interesting and our partnership with Network18 Digital enables us to reach a diverse audience with quality content. “

    The series will be launched on August 27, 2018 on Network18 Digital websites and on Firstpost and Flipkart’s YouTube channels.

    Promo link: https://www.facebook.com/firstpostin/videos/1938043026255343/

  • Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in talks to buy stake in India’s Paytm

    Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in talks to buy stake in India’s Paytm

    MUMBAI: Berkshire Hathaway is in talks to invest about Rs 2,000-2,500 crore in Paytm parent One97 Communications, in what could be the first direct investment in India, according to an Economic Times report.

    Berkshire, the conglomerate run by billionaire Warren Buffett, is said to pick up a 3-4 per cent stake in Paytm’s parent and the deal is being done through a primary subscription of shares, the paper said citing people familiar with the matter.

    The Noida-based company said last month that it conducted 5 billion transactions worth $50 billion in gross transaction value (GTV) on an annualised basis based on its performance in June. It saw total income increase by 38 per cent to Rs 828 crore with losses of Rs 899.6 crore in the year ended March 2017, according to the Registrar of Companies (RoC) filings.

    If the transaction goes through, it will give Paytm more firepower to strengthen its market leadership against Flipkart-owned Phonepe and Google’s Tez besides potential competition from Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Reliance Jio.

    One of Berkshire’s key fund managers, Todd Combs, who is also seen as a potential chief investment officer at the company, is leading the transaction, as per the reports.

    Through One97 Communications, the company owns 49 per cent in Paytm Payments Bank with the remaining stake held by Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma in his personal capacity as per regulations.

    Berkshire’s investment could be clinched in the coming weeks, valuing Paytm at over $10 billion, the report stated.

    Japan’s SoftBank and China’s Alibaba Group are among the major backers of Paytm.

  • Flipkart to exclusively launch Maggi special masala noodles

    Flipkart to exclusively launch Maggi special masala noodles

    MUMBAI: Nestlé India has announced that it will partner with Flipkart to launch MAGGI Special Masala Noodles, that epitomises the flavours of India and brings with it the goodness of 20 finely ground and whole spices, roasted to perfection. 

    As a part of the partnership, from 21 August, consumers can pre-book MAGGI Special Masala Noodles on Flipkart. This product will also be available exclusively on Flipkart from 25-20 August, following which it will be available nationwide through Nestlé’s strong distribution reach.

    Nestlé India general manager for foods business Maarten Geraets says, “We are excited about our partnership with Flipkart as it will give a chance to MAGGI lovers to try this innovation from the convenience of their home. The product uses spices and condiments present in Indian kitchens. We are confident that this product with its special taste from 20 finely ground and whole spices and specially created bouncier non sticky noodles would be appreciated by our consumers.”

    Flipkart senior director Nishit Garg adds, “Nestlé and Flipkart’s association to launch the upcoming MAGGI flavour exclusively on Flipkart cements the transition of FMCG’s physical goods into the digital space. Having traveled through several generations, MAGGI proudly enjoys an enduring relationship with its customers. And, we are very excited to partner through this journey of delighting our customers, now online.”

    In line with its new thinking, Kuchh achha pak raha hai, MAGGI Special Masala noodles, uses ingredients right out of kitchen cupboards and is inspired by India’s rich and diverse culinary tradition.

  • Amazon scaling up investment for Indian marketplace biz

    Amazon scaling up investment for Indian marketplace biz

    MUMBAI: E-commerce giant Amazon has invested additional Rs 2,700 crore for its Indian marketplace unit at a time when it continues to battle its local rival Flipkart along with investing about Rs 100 crore for food retail business in India, according to a report from Mint.

    According to the regulatory documents filed with the Registrar of Companies sourced by Paper .vc, the marketplace arm of Amazon India , Amazon Seller Services, received the funds earlier this month. Now its total investment in India stands roughly at $4 billion. The company has been spending all its cash on building massive warehouses, a large logistics unit, marketing, discounts and increasing product assortment.

    Earlier the online retailer pledged to invest at least $5 billion in India along with allocating an additional $500 million to build its food retail business. Back in June 2016, Amazon Inc CEO Jeff Bezos committed an additional $3 billion after fulfilling the initial target of $2billion made in 2014. The Indian market holds high importance for Amazon Inc’s international expansion.

    The report also says that earlier Amazon India chief Amit Agarwal indicated that the company will invest as much as necessary to conquer the Indian market. Flipkart is also leaving no stone unturned, especially on the back of the deal with deep-pocked Walmart. Both the companies are focusing on sales growth rather than cutting losses.

  • CCI approves 16$ bn acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart

    CCI approves 16$ bn acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart

    MUMBAI: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved American retail giant Walmart’s $16 billion acquisition of online marketplace Flipkart. In May, Walmart acquired a 77 per cent stake in Indian e-commerce company.

    With this, Walmart will compete directly with Amazon India in the fast growing e-commerce market. 

    This is the biggest deal for India’s e-commerce sector, which is estimated to grow close to an annual $200 billion in 10 years. The acquisition will give Walmart a strong foothold in Asia’s third largest economy where the company has struggled to expand due to restrictions on foreign investment in retail stores

    In a Twitter post, the CCI has given a heads up to the proposed acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart. The board, in its order, also added that the issue of Flipkart’s discounting practices would be dealt with separately in the upcoming e-commerce policy. 

     

    The regulatory board also mentioned that the discounting practices by Flipkart may have to be reviewed by the relevant authorities, which will put pressure on regulators to clamp down on discounts on online platforms. 

    Responding to CCI’s approval, Walmart said that the company is committed to contributing to the Indian economy by supporting farmers, businesses run by women in India and small and medium suppliers. 

    The statement read: Flipkart is a prominent player in India with a strong, entrepreneurial leadership team that is a good cultural fit with Walmart.

    Soon after the CCI’s approval on the deal, local trader body, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) opposed the Flipkart-Walmart deal on the ground that the acquisition will create unfair competition and drive local convenience stores out of business. 

    CAIT’s secretary general Praveen Khandelwal said to Reuters, “We will certainly move the court against the CCI’s decision. CAIT has called an emergency meeting of its governing council on August 19 at Nagpur, where we will finalise our strategy for a nationwide movement.”

  • Google most influential brand: Ipsos study

    Google most influential brand: Ipsos study

    MUMBAI: Ipsos, an independent market research company controlled and managed by research professionals, has released a study on Most Influential Brands (MIB) in India. Affluent Indians have chosen their winners. Google has emerged as the MIB of circa 2017.

    Technology and e-tailing brands have taken up other places in the top five positions, as per Ipsos study. Amazon is at the number two spot, followed by the mobile service provider Jio at the third spot, social engagement site Facebook is ranked fourth, followed by e-marketplace Flipkart, at the fifth position.  

    Ipsos executive director brand health tracking Jyoti Malladi said, “Influential brands provide a sense of purpose by reflecting our personal values. They are an extension of us. They help consumers engage with them long after the purchase. Further, consumers make deep emotional connections with these brands as they are surrounded by them for the most part, occupying a meaningful place in their lives.”

    Barring one FMCG player, the rest are all technology and telecom brands – Samsung (ranked sixth), Patanjali (ranked seventh), Microsoft (ranked eighth), iPhone (ranked ninth) and Apple (ranked tenth).

    The MIB study ranks 100 brands across categories, shortlisted as per advertising spends. The key parameters of evaluation were – trustworthy, engagement, leading edge, corporate citizenship and presence.

    The study was conducted online, among 1000 nationally representative affluent audiences from the top metros.

  • Tiger Global invest $6 million in TVF

    Tiger Global invest $6 million in TVF

    MUMBAI: The Viral Fever (TVF), an over-the-top (OTT) platform, has raised an additional $6 million (around Rs 41 crore at current exchange rates) from existing investor Tiger Global, according to VCCircle.

    Tiger Global is one of the most active venture capital investors, with around 50 firms in its portfolio. It has backed unicorns including e-commerce major Flipkart, classifieds platform Quikr and ride-sharing firms Ola and Uber.

    TVF started out as a YouTube channel that produced premium content targeted at a young demographic. Besides YouTube, its website and Android and iOS apps also serve as digital OTT content distribution platforms.

    TVF which is operated by Contagious Online Media Network, raised the fresh capital at an estimated post-money valuation of around $40 million (around Rs 270 crore). TVF has also raised more than $20 million in external funding, which includes a $4.97 million investment from Tiger Global in July.

    The platform was founded in 2010 by Arunabh Kumar and incorporated in August 2015. It is backed by well-known individual investors that include Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, Ola co-founders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Freecharge founder Kunal Shah and Toppr founder Zishaan Hayath, among others.

    TVF generates its revenues through marketing and advertising streams associated with its content viewership. It is yet to charge audiences for its content.

    The company had a tumultuous 2017 after founder and CEO Kumar stepped down as chief executive officer following accusations of sexual harassment by a former employee.

    He was replaced by TVF’s chief operating officer Dhawal Gusain.

  • Flipkart, Hotstar announce new ad platform ‘Shopper Audience Network’

    Flipkart, Hotstar announce new ad platform ‘Shopper Audience Network’

    MUMBAI: Flipkart and Hotstar recently announced the launch of Shopper Audience Network, Flipkart’s new ads platform that allows brands to connect with customers through personalised TrueIntent video ads on Hotstar.

    Developed by Flipkart, Shopper Audience Network uses deterministic audience based insights to help brands connect with users by leveraging Flipkart’s understanding of users’ purchase journey and the massive scale of TrueIntent video ads. It will help serve personalised advertising to over 150 million users across hundreds of categories.

    Speaking on the partnership, Flipkart senior director Prakash Sikaria said, “Understanding our customers better than anyone else has always been one of Flipkart’s core strengths, and these insights help marketers in their ad journey, on our platform. This partnership further leverages the intent-based understanding and couples it with Hotstar’s platform to create an unparalleled offering in the ads industry in India.”

    Commenting on the development Hotstar EVP Prabh Singh said, “In Hotstar, marketers today have access to a large scale audience that is deeply engaged and paying attention. Brands that advertise on Hotstar are seeing the power of that engagement. The partnership with Flipkart will build on this proposition and provide marketers an opportunity to connect the dots to hundreds of product categories on Flipkart.”

    This partnership ties in with Flipkart’s ambition to be a leading digital ads platform in India and the partnership leverages Hotstar’s huge momentum in the video ads market.

    The three key components  of Hotstar video platform’s canvas of high quality content, innovative ad formats and a sticky and affluent audience when powered via Flipkart’s customer insights come together to create a compelling platform for any brand to talk to its consumers.

  • PhonePe acquires PoS platform Zopper

    PhonePe acquires PoS platform Zopper

    MUMBAI: Flipkart-owned digital payments platform PhonePe, yesterday, announced that it has acquired Zopper Retail, a hyperlocal point-of-sale platform for small and medium businesses. As part of the acquisition, Neeraj Jain, founder-CEO, Zopper will join the PhonePe team as head of product, offline merchant solutions.

    The acquisition of Zopper is part of PhonePe’s aggressive strategy to build its offline payments business and thereby expand its customer base. With this acquisition, the Flipkart-owned digital payments company will hope to merge the value-added service capabilities of Zopper into its platform, thereby strengthening its offline proposition for merchants.

    “Zopper has a very strong technology and innovation DNA, and Neeraj and team are also a great culture fit for PhonePe. Zopper Retail is specifically designed to meet the needs of millions of small retailers in India, and their strategy ties in very well with our overall vision of making digital payments universally accepted across the country,” said PhonePe CEO Sameer Nigam as quoted by Inc 42.

    Flipkart’s co-founders Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal had also made angel investments in Zopper in 2012. Founded in 2010, Zopper was initially a community-based product review site which then pivoted into a hyperlocal e-commerce site. In 2015-16, Zopper pivoted again and split its business into two distinct divisions – a Point of Sale (Pos) platform for offline merchants (Zopper Retail) and an extended warranty solutions unit for electronics purchased at offline outlets (Zopper Assure).

    Last year, Flipkart made a commitment that it will invest $500 million in PhonePe to fight off competition. The acquisition will help the firm in the intensely competitive payments platform segment. Amongst its biggest competitors are India’s biggest payment company Paytm and Google’s Tez.

  • Flipkart, Amazon reduce ad spends on Google

    Flipkart, Amazon reduce ad spends on Google

    MUMBAI: With Google launching an e-commerce platform in the near future, the country’s largest online retail stores, Flipkart and Amazon India, have slashed advertising spends on the web-search company. Both the players see this as a serious threat, as a Mint report quoted two people, familiar with the matter.

    According to a person quoted above, Flipkart and Amazon have reduced spending on Google by more than 30 per cent in the previous three months compared to months before and shifted some of that ad spending to other platforms. Until last year, the two online retailers used to spend hundreds of crores of rupees buying ads on Google.

    Google’s interest in e-commerce stems from its worry that some shoppers are going straight to Amazon to search for products rather than using Google. If this trend continues, it could threaten Google’s core business of digital advertising. Amazon is already generating billions of dollars in ad revenues in the US.

    The people added that, Google was keen on investing in Flipkart because it wanted a strategic partner to help it with its e-commerce push. However, Google wanted a much closer collaboration than Flipkart and its new owner, Walmart, were willing to offer.

    Google’s e-commerce push and the rising importance of Flipkart and Amazon in digital ads are the latest examples of how intertwined the tech business has become and how internet firms are increasingly encroaching on each other’s turf.

    Google’s retail entry may result in higher losses for existing e-commerce firms. The e-commerce market grew 23 per cent to $18 billion in 2017, according to RedSeer Consulting. India’s e-commerce market is a fraction of the size of China’s or the US. Yet, Flipkart, Amazon India and Paytm Mall bear huge losses while specialty e-commerce firms are struggling to grow sales quickly.

    A new serious entrant with deep pockets like Google will strengthen the view that India’s e-commerce market is overcrowded.