NEW DELHI: FIH Mobile , the Hong Kong-listed unit of Foxconn Technology Solutions, has written down 80% of its $200-million investment in Indian online marketplace Snapdeal The company recognised an impairment loss of $160 million related to its investment in Gurgaon-based Jasper Infotech, which owns and operates Snapdeal, FIH Mobile said in a regulatory filing for the six-month period ended June 30. FIH Mobile, along with China’s Alibaba Group and SoftBank, however, were in favour of the transaction going through.FIH Mobile led a $500-million equity financing round in Snapdeal two years ago, a transaction that valued the ecommerce company at about $5 billion, making it, at the time, one of the most-valued consumer internet companies to have emerged out of the Indian startup ecosystem.\FIH Mobile, which manufactures all non-Apple handsets for Foxconn, had invested about $200 million in Snapdeal for a 4.07% stake in the company.“The post-impairment $40-million equity investment in JIPL represented 0.55% of the group’s total assets as of June 30, 2017,” the statement said. The impairment weighed down FIH Mobile’s results for the six months ended June 30.FIH Mobile posted a net loss of $196.6 million for the period, compared with a net profit of $21.4 million a year earlier. Revenue rose almost 90% to $4.37 billion. The writedown by a major investor has been emblematic of Snapdeal, which at one point, had challenged Flipkart for dominance in the Indian ecommerce sector, but has now fallen far behind the Bengaluru-based online commerce giant as well as Amazon

Source: Economic Times August 15, 2017 03:56 UTC