e-commerce
Amazon reportedly in talks to buy Jabong in India
MUMBAI: With the rivalry rising in the e-commerce space, it looks like the Indian arm of Amazon is ready to heat it up a notch. The e-tailer is reportedly in talks with Indian fashion site Jabong to acquire it.
According to a report in a leading daily, the talks are at a preliminary stage and despite being valued at around $500 million in a recent regulatory filing, Jabong is holding out for $700 million as it reports to have multiple suitors.
Denying commenting on the speculations, Amazon said, “We do not comment on anything we may or may not do in the future.”
The report quoted a person working with the US e-tailer as saying that Jabong was ideal for acquisition since Flipkart had acquired Myntra in May for around $330 million.
Flipkart-Myntra reportedly has 50 per cent of India’s online fashion retail market share with Jabong at 25 per cent.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bozos had promised to invest $2 billion in its India operations with a big chunk of it going towards acquisitions.
Fashion e-tailer Jabong is part of a global group after its investors German venture capital group Rocket Internet and with Swedish investor Kinnevik announcing a merger of five emerging market fashion start-ups. The merged entity is called Global Fashion Group (GFG) and worth about worth 2.7 billion euros or around Rs 21,000 crore.
The company’s CEO Arun Chandra Mohan has also been pretty optimistic about the company’s outlook and had said in a recent interview to the paper said, “I believe the valuation of my company is going to be significant. We are going to be a billion dollar business.”
Amazon India started offering fashion products on its marketplace in May, and an acquisition offers a swift route to scaling up. In the US, Amazon chose a similar strategy to improve its fashion credentials by buying Zappos in 2009.
MUMBAI: From flights to tracks, Cleartrip is now trying to keep every journey on the same ticket. Cleartrip, part of Flipkart, has launched train ticket bookings through a partnership with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, marking its entry into India’s vast rail travel ecosystem.
The integration allows users to search, book and manage train journeys directly within the app, as the company pushes towards becoming a unified, multi-modal travel platform. The move plugs Cleartrip into one of the world’s largest transportation networks, where over 800 million reserved passengers travel annually, alongside a daily footfall of around 23 million across Indian Railways.
The offering includes bookings across routes nationwide, covering General and Tatkal quotas as per Ministry of Railways guidelines. Users can also access real-time seat availability, fare insights, PNR status tracking, berth preferences and digital payment options within a single interface.
The expansion reflects a broader shift in travel platforms from specialising in a single mode to stitching together end-to-end journeys. For Cleartrip, the bet is not just on scale, but on simplifying a system often seen as complex and fragmented.
Company executives said the focus is on embedding predictive intelligence and personalisation into the booking journey, aiming to make everything from discovery to post-booking support faster and more intuitive.
The train booking feature is currently live on the app, with plans to extend it to the web platform soon, signalling a push towards a seamless cross-platform experience.
In a country where railways move billions each year, the next battleground for travel apps may well be decided not in the skies, but on the tracks.
