Flipkart, Ola top online market players: Study

Bengaluru, July 1: Home grown online players Flipkart and Ola have maintained their number one market position in their respective categories despite competition from players who have a global footprint, according to a study by RedSeer Consulting.

Ola has become the market leader with a 50% market share, almost double that of its arch-rival Uber, in 2015. On the other hand in the e-commerce segment, Flipkart has maintained itsnumberonepositionfollowed by Snapdeal and Amazon for 2015. However, the trends for the first three months of 2016 indicate that Amazon has overtaken Snapdeal, according to Redseer.

In the online cab aggregation space, Ola and its subisidiary Taxiforsure had a total market share of 61% in 2015, while for Uber it was 26%. In the e-commerce segment, Flipkart had a market share of 35-37% in 2015 followed by Snapdeal at 21-23% andAmazonat17-19%.However, thesituationdoesnotlookbright for Snapdeal, said Redseer CEO Anil Kumar. “Trends have shownthatAmazonhasovertaken Snapdeal in the first quarter of 2016.”

The study said Amazon has been able to grow aggressively driven by fashion and electronics categories and continued spending on discounting and advertising.

According to RedSeer, the gross merchandise value (GMV) of India's e-commerce market stood at $13 billion for year 2015 as compared to $3 billion in 2012. However, after a very strong growth right through 2015, the first quarter of 2016 saw a drop in sales. Kumar attributed this drop to reduced discounts and advertisement spends by all the players with the usual sales drop after the festive season.

The cash burn of the retailers of the e-commerce players have also come down during the first quarter of 2016 primarily due to reduced marketing spends. Further, the higher focus on improving supply chain efficiencies and reduced employee costs have also brought downtherateof cashburn,Redseer report said.

The online cab aggregation space has been growing over 25% every quarter with the gross booking value expected to cross $4 billion. Commenting on Ola's dominant market share Kumar said, “Ola played a masterstroke with the launch of Ola Micro whose market share alone equals that of Uber.”

Ola and Uber are presently fighting an online battle in court in Karnataka, accusing each other of violating transport rules.