The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
MUMBAI, India — Amazon.com Inc. has made a bid to acquire Indian digital payments startup FreeCharge from e-commerce operator Snapdeal, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The offer is worth between $50 million to $80 million, the person said, asking not to be identified as the negotiations are private. Snapdeal’s parent Jasper Infotech Pvt is in talks with multiple other parties, including Axis Bank Ltd. and One97 Communications-owned Paytm Payments Bank, the person said.
Amazon is trying to buttress its digital payments operations as it takes on local rivals including Paytm E-commerce Pvt as well as Tiger Global Management-backed Flipkart Online Services Pvt. The US company has entered its fifth year of operations in India as the country shapes up to become of the world’s largest online retail markets.
In April, Amazon secured a license from the Reserve Bank of India to operate a digital wallet. Acquiring FreeCharge would help the Seattle-based company expand its technology into point-of-sale and other uses. The company last year hired former Citibank executive Sriraman Jagannathan to head its digital payments business in India and recently invested $20 million into the business.
ADVERTISEMENT
Amazon said in an emailed statement that it doesn’t comment on rumour and speculation. Snapdeal, FreeCharge, Paytm and Axis didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking details. Amazon’s interest in FreeCharge was reported earlier by the Economic Times.
The development comes as Snapdeal is said to be in talks to combine with Flipkart.
By Saritha Rai and George Smith Alexander; editors: Robert Fenner, Edwin Chan.
Successful social media acquisitions require keeping both talent and technology in place. Neither is likely to happen in a deal for the Chinese app, writes Dave Lee.
TikTok’s first time sponsoring the glitzy event comes just as the US effectively deemed the company a national security threat under its current ownership, raising complications for Condé Nast and the gala’s other organisers.
BoF Careers provides essential sector insights for fashion's technology and e-commerce professionals this month, to help you decode fashion’s commercial and creative landscape.
The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely.