We are all aware that Amazon is constantly pushing its boundaries to increase consumer engagement in India. The e-commerce giant is giving a tough competition to homegrown e-tailers — Flipkart, Snapdeal, and others by flagging its name in every revenue-potential field. Even the official data now stand in support of these facts, which suggest that Amazon is closing the gap in terms of mobile traffic in India, which plays a vital role in the success of any e-commerce website.
As per a fresh report from 7park Data, a real-time analytics firm, as of the weekend ending 4 March 2017, Flipkart accounted for 30.7 percent of monthly e-commerce users in India. On the other hand, Amazon stood at 30.3 percent, with a minor difference of around 0.4 percent. While Snapdeal was able to scoop up just 10.8 percent of the users.
These figures represent a decline of 11.5 percent for Flipkart and an increase of 46 percent for Amazon from Q1’16 to Q1’17. The said numbers create a distressful situation for Flipkart, owing to its repute as one of the top scorers in India’s mobile app market.
Although Flipkart has been serving the country for almost 10 years now, the consumer engagement for the e-commerce has slipped constantly since Amazon’s entry. It has been just 4 years for Amazon, which seems too soon for an e-commerce company to grasp a 30.3 percent share in India. The platform recently opened up 7 new warehouses in the country to further push its reach and services to an even larger chunk of the populace.
The success of Amazon can be credited to its huge revenues through its annual electronics sales. According to the company data, the American giant’s electronics sales have seen nearly 200% growth in the last one year and grown 5X in terms of daily volumes during the last sale event held in January.
However, these figures note Flipkart’s progress prior to March 2017. In the ending financial month itself, Flipkart took pretty huge steps that are certain to oppose Amazon’s endeavor to become the primary e-tailer in the country. Not only it did secure a hefty sum of $1.4Bn from the likes of Tencent, eBay, and Microsoft but has also acquired operating rights for eBay India — one of the country’s first e-commerce setups. They’ve also signed an exclusive cross-border trade agreement to make each others’ inventories available to international customers, which will help Flipkart reach a wider audience.
