U.S. retail giant Walmart saw international sales rise 13.3% in the quarter through September, led by e-commerce major Flipkart’s Big Billion Days sales event.
The world’s largest retailer’s international sales rose to $26.8 billion on a currency-neutral basis, helped by Flipkart and its Mexican subsidiary Walmex.
“E-commerce sales on a constant currency basis were exceptionally strong, growing 46% for the quarter. The earlier timing of Flipkart’s Big Billion Days event also had a positive impact on sales results,” said John David Rainey, Walmart’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, in an analyst call.
“In India, Flipkart had a great quarter with strong customer response to our Big Billion Days event, which moved into Q3 this year from Q4 of last year,” said Rainey.
Flipkart saw over 1 billion visits during the eight-day event, he said, adding that on the e-commerce platform, more than 60% of those customers came from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
PhonePe also continues to perform well, with annualized total payment volume (TPV) now over $920 billion and a record level of monthly transactions of about 3.6 billion, Rainey said.
According to a report by payments gateway PayU, transactions increased 133% and spending rose 124% during this year’s holiday sales compared to 2021, driven by the economic recovery and increasing UPI acceptance by small businesses and consumers. Notably, the average ticket size for UPI transactions has decreased slightly (-4%). Consumers used UPI for small ticket items such as city travel groceries and entertainment, which may account for the decline in ticket size, the report said.
Flipkart Internet Pvt. Ltd, which operates the Flipkart e-commerce marketplace, saw its net loss for fiscal 2022 rise 51% year-on-year to ₹4,362 crore compared to a ₹2,882 crore loss in FY21 primarily due to a significant increase in legal, marketing, transportation and other inventory costs.
However, the company’s operating income rose 31% year-on-year to ₹10,659 billion in FY22 from ₹8,115.7 million in FY21, according to filings retrieved from business intelligence platform Tofler.
Flipkart’s ad spend increased over 80% in FY22 to ₹1.946 billion from ₹1.073 crore last year, while paying ₹1.224 crore for legal fees in FY22 compared to ₹837 crore a year earlier.
Flipkart’s net loss last fiscal year was the highest in the past four years. During FY20, FY19 and FY18, total losses of Walmart-owned e-commerce platform were £1,936.6m, £1,624.4m and £1,159.4m, respectively. The large part of the company’s revenue comes from the e-commerce marketplace and IT-enabled services.
Last month, Flipkart launched Flipverse – a metaverse space where consumers can discover products in a photorealistic virtual destination and shop in the Flipkart app. In September, the e-commerce platform launched a new hotel booking feature, Flipkart Hotels, to expand its offering in the travel and hospitality sectors.
