Amazon, Flipkart battle in India for e-commerce's 'last frontier'

New Delhi

WITH 100 million new Internet users every year, Amazon is betting big on India, but a major new investment in homegrown rival Flipkart means the battle to dominate the fast-growing e-commerce market is set to heat up.

Flipkart announced last week that top international companies including Microsoft, eBay and China's Tencent had pledged investments totalling US$1.4 billion, among the largest sums ever raised by an Indian start-up. The 10-year-old e-commerce company needs all the help it can get to compete with Amazon after the Seattle-based giant made India's 1.25 billion inhabitants a global strategic priority, earmarking US$5 billion in investment funds.