Even though ecommerce giant Flipkart is tight-lipped about its plans to go app-only, the management has often spoken about becoming mobile-centric with each passing year.
During the Leadership Summit organized by Indian School of Business, Flipkart’s Chief Product Officer Punit Soni revealed, “In the next two years, Flipkart will become a very mobile-centric company. It will probably build two or three things based on some of the things you talked about like data and social (network) that will actually allow people to connect even more deeply.”
Soni also discussed that banking on heavy discounts using VC capital is not good in the long run. Hence, the online marketplace is keen to focus on developing it mobile platform and enhance shopping experience of buyers minus the discounts.
He rightly stated, “At some point, it (PE funds) will dry up. Those who will have real value will stand in the market. If I have really something to offer beyond those discounts, you will stay with me… The race is not actually to use discounts to get us as many users as possible. The race is to build something people would love even if I did not give discounts.”
Soni also made it evident that for now Flipkart is only concerned about mobile shoppers and not so much about the desktop users when he said, “In India, you have probably 20 odd millions of laptops, but one billion are using mobiles… I have to worry about that billion people who will use the phone to buy stuff.”
The parent company, Flipkart Internet Private Limited that runs few subsidiary businesses including the shopping portal, recorded four-time increase in revenue, according to this ET report. Its net worth also increased by 12 times in fiscal 2015.
The company that earns revenue through selling commission, shipping fee and advertisements made Rs 659 crore in the year ended March 31. Last year the revenue was Rs 179 crore. Its net-worth too jumped from Rs 415 crore from last year to Rs 4,819 this year.
Flipkart Internet is just one part of the complicated web that Singapore based Flipkart has knitted. There are many subsidiaries and subsets such as Flipkart Payment, Flipkart Digital, Flipkart Marketplaces and Flipkart Logistics, which are all owned by the Singapore based company.
Editor team is specialized in introducing the marketplace content targeting the Indian online sellers. They plan and coordinate to bring the appealing content for the small businesses on how to partner with the e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart and strategies for improving their online business.
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