Myntra gets 25% hike in annual budget by Flipkart

Myntra.com said that its parent company, Flipkart, had hiked its annual budget by a quarter in a bid to bolster Myntra’s position as one of the country’s largest online fashion retailer.

The hike comes amid reports earlier this year that Flipkart intends to cut its annual outlay for Myntra.

Ananth Narayanan, Chief Executive Officer, Myntra, said, "This year we got 25% extra money from the Flipkart board."

Narayanan said Myntra would use the additional money to upgrade technology and to also invest in 3-4 small to medium ethnic brands to ramp up the company’s ethnic offerings.

Narayanan, said, "We will just invest in those brands and that will eventually be run by the entrepreneurs. In addition to our operating budget, our board has asked us to thoughtfully invest more in areas such as technology and brands which will help us continue on our growth trajectory and achieve profitability by March 2018."

A boost in Myntra’s budget comes close on the heels of Flipkart’s announcement last month that it had raised $1.4 billion funding from global giants Microsoft, eBay and WeChat-investor Tencent.

Myntra currently operates a so-called hybrid model where it buys products from vendors to sell on the platforms as well as it runs a marketplace where vendors sell directly on the site without routing it through Vector E-commerce, the largest vendor on Myntra.

Now, a host of brands that sell on Myntra said the online retailer is asking them to shift from the earlier model of selling their products to Vector E-commerce to listing directly on its marketplace.