New Delhi: Flipkart and PhonePe gets separated and both entities will continue to operate under US-based retail giant Walmart, a joint statement said on Friday. PhonePe was acquired by Flipkart Group in 2016.

Flipkart and PhonePe Separated

As part of this transaction, existing shareholders of Flipkart Singapore and PhonePe Singapore, led by Walmart, bought shares directly in PhonePe India. This completes the move to make PhonePe a fully India-based company, a process that began earlier this year,” it said in a statement.

Walmart will remain the majority shareholder of both business groups.

“Flipkart and PhonePe are proud homegrown Indian brands with a user base of over 400 million. We look forward to the next phase of our growth as we invest in new businesses – such as insurance, wealth management and lending, while enabling the next wave of growth for UPI payments in India .This will help support our vision to provide financial inclusion to billions of Indians,” said PhonePe Founder and CEO Sameer Nigam.

This year, PhonePe changed its headquarters from Singapore to India.

Since its launch, PhonePe has successfully digitized more than 35 million offline merchants spread across tier 2, 3, 4 and beyond cities, covering 99 percent of PIN codes in the country, the statement said.

“We are proud to see PhonePe grow and flourish as a successful organization in its own right. We are confident that PhonePe will continue to expand and fulfill its vision of providing financial inclusion to millions of Indians,” said Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy.