Flipkart's IPO has been ‘Coming Soon’ since 2019
Flipkart's IPO has been deferred, again. Here's why Walmart hit pause, what the numbers actually say, and what it tells us about the state of India's IPO market in 2026.
By Harsh Soni
Imagine spending years building a company. Getting it to 500 million registered users. Leading your entire industry on market share. And then your parent company flies in, sits you down, and says: not yet.
That's roughly what happened when Walmart CEO John Furner landed in Bengaluru last week, his first visit to India since taking the job in February. He met the broader Flipkart team, and said nice things about Flipkart Minutes. And then, quietly, delivered a message that effectively shelved one of the most anticipated IPOs in Indian corporate history.
No IPO. Not this year. Not until Flipkart turns EBITDA-positive.
The target Walmart set
Walmart has told Flipkart to achieve EBITDA breakeven by the end of FY27, before any external fundraise of any kind, whether private or public. And that includes the pre-IPO funding round of $2–2.5 billion Flipkart had been quietly exploring just weeks ago. Although, this allows Walmart to set a benchmark valuation without dilution.
The reasoning, per sources close to the matter: a fundraise at this stage would distract Flipkart's top management from the harder, less glamorous job of actually getting profitable.
So the IPO is parked. Indefinitely.
The numbers behind the delay
Here's the honest picture. Flipkart Internet, the marketplace arm, had the following results.
Increased revenue, reduced losses. That's genuine progress.
But the group picture is messier. Flipkart also owns Myntra, Cleartrip, eKart, Shopsy and super.money. Consolidate all of those and the losses climb considerably higher.
And then there's Flipkart Minutes, the 10-minute grocery delivery play that Furner himself was bullish about just days before the deferral was announced. Flipkart is adding nearly 100 dark stores every month, targeting 1,100–1,200 stores by July 2026. That kind of expansion burns cash. Fast.
The uncomfortable truth is this: the very bets Flipkart is making to build a great IPO story – quick commerce, food delivery, ticketing – are exactly what's making profitability harder to hit on schedule.
Walmart can wait
Here's something worth noting: Walmart is not panicking.
The Flipkart acquisition, whatever its troubles, has been a narrative tailwind for Walmart's global growth story.
Walmart can afford to wait. The question is whether Flipkart can afford to not list.
Meanwhile, Flipkart is sitting in a genuinely dominant position. A 50–60% market share in Indian e-commerce by GMV, surpassing Meesho and Amazon in monthly active users. If they get the profitability story right, the IPO, when it finally comes, could be enormous.
PhonePe first. Now Flipkart. India's IPO party is stalling.
Flipkart isn't alone in the waiting room.
Two months before this, PhonePe, also Walmart-owned, pulled its $1.3 billion IPO citing market uncertainty. Reliance Jio, which promised an IPO in the first half of 2026, has quietly pushed it. NSE, a stock exchange that has spent years helping other companies go public, still can't seem to do the same for itself.
The numbers tell the broader story.
The market peaked in FY25: over 365 IPOs, raising ₹2 lakh crore. But in 2026, the average listing gain slipped to −1.9%, 13 of 18 debuts closed below issue price. Globally, IPO volumes fell 23% in Q1 2026 compared to the same period last year, the lowest count in six years.
What's spooking markets?
- The US–Iran war.
- Oil prices spiking from $70 to above $119 per barrel, inflation concerns.
- Foreign investors pulling over ₹2 lakh crore from Indian equities in just 4 months of 2026.
When secondary markets look shaky, companies don't want to price their IPOs into uncertainty.
Is the FII pullout actually concerning? On paper, perhaps, but the real story is a structural handoff. Foreign investors have been reducing ownership from 19.9% to 14.7% over the last decade, with heavy selling in IT, BFSI, and FMCG. But domestic investors have stepped up – DIIs now own a record 18.9% of Indian equities, absorbing the exits in 39 out of 41 Nifty stocks FIIs sold. Your SIP is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
The broader IPO market adds another layer. When 13 of 18 new listings close below their issue price on debut, something structural shifts in who chooses to list. The companies that come to market are either those with no choice, or those with enough conviction to price into headwinds.
Everyone else, anyone with a credible reason to wait, waits. The result: 124 SEBI-approved companies sitting in queue, waiting to list. The pipeline is full. The tap is barely dripping.
For now, Flipkart remains exactly what it has always been: India's biggest e-commerce story that the market hasn't been allowed to price yet. The IPO should come – but the timing will be Walmart's call. And in a market where half of all new listings are losing money on day one, that patience might not be stubbornness.
