Flipkart losses show difficulty of catering to discount-crazy Indians
₹36,000 crore, more than a third of the over ₹90,000 crore GMV projected by Redseer Strategy Consultants for the month-long spree, which kicks off just before Navratri and ends with Bhai Dooj after Diwali. Redseer, which tracks around 100 e-retail platforms and claims to have a fix on 90% of online sales, had forecast in a report released last month that this year’s festive season shopping spree will be the biggest on record, with shoppers expected to spend 20% more than they did during last year’s festival season. So far, Redseer appears to be dead on target.
The first week of the month-long sale – which concluded on 15 October – had already clocked ₹47,000 crore in GMV sold, up 19% year-on-year. Flipkart has so far stayed ahead of rival Amazon, grabbing 25% of orders, as customers jostled to bag high-priced mobile phones and appliances at record discounts. According to an estimate by Counterpoint research, Apple alone sold more than 1.5 million units of its iPhone range in the first week of the sale.
While these eye-popping numbers might suggest that e-commerce has finally turned the corner in India, the balance sheets tell a very different tale. More than 15 years after it started operations in India, Flipkart, which Walmart acquired for $16 billion in 2018, is yet to make a paisa in profits. Flipkart has reported increased consolidated loss to ₹4,890.6 crore in FY23, according to a Reuters report citing business intelligence platform Tofler.
India’s most valued e-commerce company net losses widen a 44% increase year-on-year (YoY), even as net income rose over 9.4% to ₹56,012.8 crore in FY23. Amazon is no better off. A decade into its India play, Amazon Seller Services, which runs the Amazon India marketplace,
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