Flipkart and Amazon Dussehra sales end, estimated to have reached $2 billion

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Oct 16, 2018

As the festive sale weekend closed, India’s e-commerce giants reported higher sales than last year although the final revenue total is believed to be lower than pre-sale estimates.

Consultancy firm RedSeer estimates that the total revenue totalled around $2.3 billion for the sale weekend that saw e-commerce firms including Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal, and Paytm Mall roll out huge discounts across their stores. While it was an improvement upon last year -  one third higher than 2017’s $1.5 billion – it still missed the firm’s estimates of between $2.5 billion (Rs 16,632 core) and $3 billion.

According to Forrester Research, Flipkart alone had a revenue total of around $1 billion. The firm also stated that Amazon had narrowed the gap still further between the two businesses this sale season. It is expected that these predictions and estimates will be fine-tuned over the course of the week as data continues to be released. However, neither Amazon nor Flipkart release their sales revenue totals.

According to TNN, Flipkart and Amazon account for 90 percent of online sales in India and both business have claimed that they had the highest revenue total this season, as happened last year. TNN reported that analysts believe that Amazon India clocked between $800 and $900 million this sale season and Flipkart clocked around $1 billion.

Flipkart’s CEO, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, told the press last week than his competitor (certainly referring to Amazon) had lost relevance. Krishnamurthy also claimed that Flipkart now has a 70 percent share of India’s online market.

Amazon India’s country head, Amit Agarwal, responded: “We surpassed nearly the entire first wave of last year’s sales in the first 36 hours in 2018. With [a] three-times surge in Prime member signups compared to last year’s sales and more than 80 percent of new customers coming from small towns, and orders from 99 percent of serviceable pin-codes in just four days, we are happy to focus on what matters- customers.”

Fashion sales this sale season saw higher demand than last year helped in part by Flipkart and Amazon’s focus on fashion this year.