Flipkart: ‘Lets buy Letsbuy’. Deal.

Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce company, has acquired its main competitor, Letsbuy, for cash and equity. The details are not yet known, but Sachin Bansal, Flipkart’s CEO did say that ‘This acquisition opportunity came at a very attractive price for us and the timing has also been ideal.‘

Letsbuy will still continue to function independently, but will have access to Flipkart’s technology. Letsbuy.com’s founder Hitesh Dhingra says, ‘The Company had a choice to raise a large round of funding as well, however aligning our business with the largest player in the market made sense as the resultant synergies will guarantee our customers the best possible service, price and selection.‘

There has been a lot of talk recently about how awesome Amazon’s junglee.com is. Junglee.com is a mete-search, that in turn lets you search other online book store’s and compare prices. Something like torrentz.com for torrents, for those of you who know what torrents are. As a matter of fact, this is what Sachin Bansal and Binu Bansal, founder’s of Flipkart, initially intended to do, but realised that there were no major players in India, and hence became one [ and the best ] themselves.

‘This acquisition fits into our strategy of building dominant shares in all categories we operate in.’ says Sachin Bansal. He also adds ‘We are already leaders in the books and media verticals. Given that we managed to build a leadership position in consumer electronics as well since its launch in early 2011, it made sense for us to consolidate when we saw this opportunity.‘

I don’t think Amazon has any real chance of breaking in the Indian e-commerce scene, given the combined expertise of Flipkart and Letsbuy. 2012 is going to be one hell of a year for Indian e-commerce. Better get some popcorn!