And that sweet little rivalry between Flipkart and Snapdeal continues. After Flipkart announced its comeback to the mobile browser with the launch of Flipkart Lite, now Snapdeal too has launched a similar platform, irkingly dubbing it ‘Snap Lite’.
Whlie Flipkart’s mobile web app is user friendly to the Chrome users, Snapdeal’s service has the exact similar user experience as of its website and can work across all browsers. And even though 85% of Indian smartphones run on Android, that multi-browser compatibility will prove critical to the overall brand value of both Snapdeal and Flipkart — positively for the former and a bit negatively for the latter.
As per Snapdeal’s Chief Product Officer Anand Chandrasekaran, the mobile browsing with the latest Snap-Lite will be around 85% faster. He tweeted,
Is there a https://t.co/Ed8cS7dJ8g experience that’s 85% faster? Introducing Snap-lite (across all mobile browsers). pic.twitter.com/dWtZkFniWw
— Anand Chandrasekaran (@anandc) November 12, 2015
Taking into account the dreadfully slow data connection speeds most of India has, it is optimised to work with slow internet connections. Users can access the new lite website by going to the footer of the Snapdeal website where it says “Experience super fast Snapdeal website. Switch to Snapdeal Lite”.
However, Snapdeal’s Lite version doesn’t seem to have support for the app-like features which are present on Flipkart Lite, such as the ability to add a shortcut on the home screen, push notifications, and offline functionality.
Snapdeal and Flipkart are the two largest local e-commerce players in market. They haven been competing with each other since long time to take the pole position in the market.
BTW Flipkart, ‘Flip Lite’ could have been a better name ! Ahh…looks like Snapdeal just scored one over you guys in case of brand names.
