NEW DELHI: After foreign investors injected some mega millions into India's e-retail companies in recent months, including the $627 million for SnapDeal by Japan's Softbank, public listing of shares and consolidation are seen as next big developments for this booming industry, seen as a $100 billion market in five years.

This, industry experts said, is not only to realise value for these companies but also to raise the $500 million that's seen as the immediate funding needed for infrastructure, logistics and warehousing, which could go up to a whopping $950 million to $1.9 trillion by 2017.

"Public listing will take place for these e-commerce companies shortly. It could happen even in the next three-four months," said Saurabh Srivastava, director-operations with PricewaterhouseCoopers.

"The demand in the e-commerce space will remain on the higher side in India. There will be also some consolidation in the e-tailing space with some mergers and acquisitions on the cards," Saurabh Srivastava, told IANS.

Signs of these are already visible.

Earlier this year in May two of India's better-known e-retailing companies, Flipkart and Myntra, merged. The deal was estimated to be worth about $300 million. Flipkart also got $1 billion in funding, taking its valuation to a whopping $7 billion.

Soon after, the US-based Amazon said it was investing $2 billion in India's e-commerce space. Once Softbank's investments come in, SnapDeal would have raised some $1 billion this year, including $133.77 million in February from eBay.

"All this cash infusion will help e-commerce companies to build a good scale. This will help the market to mature to the next level. After that they'll look at Initial public Offers (IPO)," said Ashvin Vellody, partner, management consulting with KPMG.