eBay plans to close sale to Flipkart in second half of the year

Americas ecommerce marketplace eBay looks close sale of its India business to Flipkart second half of this year and hopes its 500-million dollar investment in and strategic partnership with the country’s top online marketplace will boost India play. The company will stop reporting active sales in India and related financials once the sale is closed.

Devin Wenig, CEO at eBay optimistic about the new exclusive partnership, which enables the company to increase penetration in India by making eBay’s global inventory accessible to a significantly larger set of Indian consumers.

Scott Schenkel, CFO at eBay expects this deal to close early in the second half of 2017, and upon deal close the company will no longer report active buyer GMV and related financials for eBay India.

eBay along with Microsoft and Tencent pumped in 1.4 billion dollar into Flipkart in the biggest funding round in the Indian ecommerce space, announced earlier this month. The deal included sale of eBay.in to Flipkart and an exclusive cross-border trade agreement.

eBay had entered the India in 2004 and started operations through the acquisition of News Corp-backed Bazee. com. The company, however, failed to capitalise on its first-mover advantage and eventually lost out to Flipkart and Amazon. eBay had picked up a significant stake in Delhi-based online retailer Snapdeal in 2013, a part of which it still holds.