Flipkart reports 43% rise in GMV in AprilSeptember
SCORECARD Company has seen a jump in its market share from a year ago, says Naspers
Flipkart Ltd has reported a jump of 43% in gross merchandise value( GM V) for the six months ended September 30, an indication that India’s largest online retailer is consistently holding its own against Amazon India after a tough 18 months during which it lost market share and pushed out most of its senior leaders.
According to a financial report from Naspers, one of Flipkart’s largest shareholders, Flipkart has seen a jump in its market share from the year-ago period.
Naspers said Flipkart, which owns fashion retailers Myntra and Jabong and payments app PhonePe, further cemented its position at the helm of Indian e-commerce during the recentlyconcluded festive season sale when it handily outsold arch-rival Amazon India.
“Flipkart, the group’s equityaccounted investment in India, continued its growth acceleration and further solidified its market leadership. During the recent festive season sales period, Flipkart captured around70%of the total ecommerce market. Flipkart has also secured substantial capital from investors – including Tencent and Softbank – to continue building its position as a leading business-to-consumer (B2C) platform in the fastgrowing Indian market,” Naspers said on Thursday in its halfyearly report.
Naspers’ latest growth and market-share numbers on Indian e-commerce are based on Flipkart’s estimates.
Neither Flipkart nor Naspers has disclosed Flipkart’s GMV.
Amazon India( Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd) has repeatedly disputed the claim that it lags Flipkart (excluding Myntra and Jabong) and has asserted that its way of calculating gross sales could be different from that used by Flipkart. Gross sales refers to the value of goods sold on a platform, not net revenue.
In thefirst two quarters ended June 30, Amazon has said that its unit sales grew by 85% and 88%, respectively, over the comparable period in 2016.
“We are leaders in Selection, Customer Traffic, Mobile App Store rankings and Daily Active A pp users among shopping apps as per independent and credible third party sources. As of June 2017, we lead the second largest player in traffic by 58% on PC, 129% on mobile web and have 52% more app downloads (Sources: Similarweb, App Annie),” an Amazon spokesperson said in an email.
“There are no credible third party reports analysing the growth of the ecommerce sector in India. Though as per the recent Kantar IMRB reports for the festive season, Amazon.in led with the highest customer share of 44% and order share of 42%.”
According to the latest filing from Na sp ers,t he South African firm currently holds a 14% stake in Flipkart. Naspers said it bought shares worth $71 million from other existing investors in Flipkart in April.
Naspers said Flipkart’s share of monthly GM V stood at roughly 58% in June this year, up from 45% in June 2016.
“Flip kart increased its share of GM V to 58%( June 17), compared to 45% a year ago. Flip kart. com is the category leader in 12 of 20 focus categories, including mobile phones, TVs, laptops and fashion,” said Naspers.
Naspers also stated that Flipkart’s strong growth during the first-halfhad helped shore up the value of Naspers’ holdings in the e-commerce space.
“Driven by increased scale and strong growth from Flipkart, classifieds and payments, ecommerce revenue growth accelerated to 38% YoY, a significant increase on the 24% reported in the prior year,” said Naspers.
Flipkart and Naspers did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
On Thursday, Mint reported that Amazon India’s revenue at its marketplace arm more than doubled in the year ended March. Sales at Amazon Seller Services rose 105% in the 2016-17 fiscal, although regulatory filings by the company showed an increase of only 41%. An Amazon spokeswoman said the difference in growth figures was due to onetime charges, which she declined to specify.
The latest claims from Na sp e rs show that Flip kart has displayed signs of being back to its best. The turnaround in sales was engineered by former Tiger Global Management executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy who was brought back to the company by alarmed investors in June 2016 amid an all-out assault from Amazon India.
Prior to Krishnamurthy’s return, sales had stagnated at Flipkart and during the months of July and August, Amazon India had, in fact, overtaken Flipkart’ s monthly sales on a stand alone basis, as Mint reported in August and September 2016. Flipkart has either forced out or lost most of its senior management team after Krishnamurthy was promoted to CEO in January.