Flipkart Explained: From a 2007 Bengaluru Bookstore to Walmart's Indian E-Commerce Engine

If you searched for flipkart, you are in good company. Google Trends data for India, observed on 12 October 2026, shows the term holding a normalized interest score of 14 over the past 12 months — a modest 10% dip, but still one of the most consistently searched brand names in the country. That steady baseline reflects what Flipkart has become: not a news event, but a daily utility for hundreds of millions of Indian shoppers. Here is what the company is, who owns it, and how it got here.

What is Flipkart?

Flipkart is an Indian e-commerce marketplace headquartered in Bengaluru. It sells everything from smartphones and fashion to groceries and furniture, and describes itself on its own site as having over 200 million users and more than 150 million products across 80-plus categories — figures the company states itself, so treat them as self-reported. Independent snapshots are more conservative but still large: a 2023 AllianceBernstein report cited by Wikipedia put Flipkart's share of Indian e-commerce at roughly 48%, ahead of Amazon India and Meesho.

From a Koramangala apartment to a Walmart subsidiary

Flipkart was founded in October 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, IIT Delhi alumni and former Amazon employees, who started the business as an online bookstore run from a two-bedroom apartment in Koramangala, Bengaluru. According to Wikipedia's history of the company, the site reportedly reached about 100 orders a day by 2008, then expanded into electronics, fashion and beyond, acquiring fashion retailer Myntra in 2014 for about US$280 million and payments startup PhonePe in 2016.

The defining moment came in 2018. Walmart announced on 9 May 2018 that it would acquire a 77% controlling stake for about US$16 billion — then the largest e-commerce acquisition ever — and completed the deal on 18 August 2018. Walmart now holds roughly 85% of the company. Both founders have since exited: Sachin Bansal left after the acquisition, and Binny Bansal resigned as CEO in November 2018 and later sold his remaining stake to Walmart.

The Flipkart group today

Flipkart is more than a single shopping app. Its group includes:

• Myntra – fashion and lifestyle, acquired in 2014
• Ekart – the in-house logistics arm
• Cleartrip – travel bookings, acquired in 2021
• Shopsy – a social-commerce and budget marketplace launched in 2021
• super.money – a credit-first UPI fintech app launched in 2024

PhonePe, acquired in 2016, was spun off in December 2022, with Flipkart shareholders receiving direct stakes in the payments company. In 2025, Flipkart also announced plans to shift its legal domicile from Singapore back to India — a move widely read as preparation for a potential Indian stock-market listing, though no IPO date has been confirmed as of October 2026.

Big Billion Days and Flipkart Minutes

Two services explain much of Flipkart's search staying power. The annual Big Billion Days sale, first held in October 2014 around Diwali, remains India's biggest online shopping event; the 2014 edition famously sold US$100 million worth of goods in 10 hours despite technical glitches. More recently, Flipkart Minutes took the company into quick commerce in August 2024, delivering groceries and small electronics from dark stores. By 11 September 2026, Minutes operated about 1,200 micro-fulfillment centers across more than 150 cities.

Scale and finances: a dated snapshot

For the financial year ended 31 March 2025, Flipkart reported revenue of ₹82,787 crore (about US$8.6 billion) against a net loss of ₹5,189 crore — a reminder that Indian e-commerce still prioritizes growth over profit. These are filed figures for that fiscal year, not live metrics. The company employed about 22,000 people excluding Myntra as of January 2024.

Why India keeps searching for Flipkart

The 10% decline in normalized Google Trends interest over the past 12 months does not signal decline in the business — Trends measures relative search attention, not sales or app installs. Much of Flipkart's traffic has shifted to its app, and search interest now spikes around predictable moments: Big Billion Days, iPhone launches, and Minutes expansion. Nineteen years after two friends started selling books from a Bengaluru flat, Flipkart has become part of India's everyday internet vocabulary — which is exactly what a steady, unspectacular search curve looks like.