Online marketplace Snapdeal has accepted Flipkart's revised takeover offer of up to $950 million, two sources said on Wednesday, providing heft to its bigger rival in a high-stakes battle with Amazon.com Inc.

The board of Jasper Infotech, which runs Snapdeal, approved Flipkart's bid of $900 million-$950 million last week, the sources who were familiar with the matter said. A deal is now pending the approval of Snapdeal shareholders, they said.

Snapdeal declined to comment, while Flipkart was not immediately available for comment.

India's fledgling e-commerce sector is in the midst of a fierce war for supremacy between US online retail giant Amazon and leading homegrown player Flipkart at a time more and more Indians shop on the web, helped by a spurt in availability of cheap phones and data plans.

Japan's solar-to-tech conglomerate SoftBank, Snapdeal's biggest investor, is keen to consummate the deal and take an equity stake in Flipkart to profit from India's booming online retail market.

A 2016 report from accounting firm EY noted that e-commerce has grown at a compound annual growth rate of over 50 per cent in the last five years in India and the pace of growth is expected to continue, with e-commerce sales topping $35 billion by 2020.

Bengaluru-headquarterd Flipkart had revised its initial offer for Snapdeal to up to $950 million, Reuters had reported last week.

The board also considered a $700-million share-swap offer by listed e-commerce firm Infibeam but rejected it as too low, one of the sources said.

Infibeam declined to comment.

Separately, private sector lender Axis Bank is the frontrunner to acquire Snapdeal's digital payments unit FreeCharge for $60 million, the sources said.

Axis Bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment. All sources spoke on condition of anonymity as the discussions are not public.

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