"Flipkart may have just become the first Indian billion dollar Internet
company" ran the headlines across many business websites across the globe
and also in India somewhere in the last week of July-11 / first week of
Aug-11. Indians and India have been associated with lot many dotcoms; heres
one which has changed the course of book buying culture in India and has
now ventured into computer peripherals, mobiles, games, music and the
latest lateral shift being to kitchen appliances. This weekend, lets peek
into this company which is has made waves and continues to make waves
challenging some behemoths like amazon.com too in its way. For further
details, you may visit flipkart.com; take a peek and you would simply be
amazed by the pricing and the service turn-around-time. I hope the Bansals
are listening to my marketing.
Abridged from thenextweb.com
About it: While much is said about India being a service oriented, rather
than product oriented country, several e-commerce startups have emerged
over the last couple of years to prove that India can also nurture Internet
companies which can compete with companies in the Silicon Valley. One such
startup is Flipkart.com. Hailed as India’s Amazon.com, Flipkart is close to
raising $150 million in a PE round of funding from General Atlantic
Partners in one of the biggest ever deals for an Indian Internet firm,
making it the first Indian Internet company to sport a billion dollar
valuation, as revealed by VCCircle.
Founded in October 2007, Flipkart was a humble online book retailer which
went on to become the largest online bookstore in India within two years,
surpassing its rivals such as Infibeam, Landmark and Indiaplaza. In 2010,
it diversified into becoming a generic e-commerce website, selling mobile
phones, laptops, music CDs/DVDs, movies, games and software, and acquired a
California-based company social book discovery service weRead. Recently, it
further expanded its product portfolio to encompass home appliances and
personal & health care products as well.
Brancding: It underwent a major brand makeover earlier this year with a new
interface and logo, and kickstarted its offline advertising campaign in
addition to its aggressive online campaigns by putting out ads in the
leading newspapers and on television channels to become one of the hottest
Internet companies in India, signifying the huge growth the company was
experiencing.
The figures and financials: The company was initially self-funded, with
co-founders Sachin and Binny Bansal spending Rs 400,000 ($9056) to setup
the business. They later raised two rounds of funding from Accel Partners
and Tiger Global Management to the tune of $31 million, with the first
round being around $10 million and the second round being $20 million.
As of June 2011, Flipkart had 1,500 employees on board and setup 5
warehouses in Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata. Also it had
experienced 2 million unit sales and 4 million unique vistors per month
with sales growing at 25% per month, eyeing a $50 million run rate as
reported by TechCrunch.
Future: With the online retail industry in India pegged to reach $1.5
billion mark by 2015, sources suggests that e-commerce is just hotting up
in India and we may soon seen many more Internet companies achieving
similar success. Now that Amazon is reportedly entering India in early 2012
, this news becomes even more significant, considering that Amazon has
previously, and unsuccessfully, tried acquiring the company, with Flipkart
demanding a very high buyout price.
As I always say, brickbats and bouquets welcome
-Sukhi
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