ipkart

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Flipkart
Flipkart india.png
TypePrivate
Founded2007
No. of locationsBangalore, India
Area servedIndia
Founder(s)
Key peopleSachin Bansal & Manish Verma
IndustryOnline retailing
ProductsFlipkart.com, Electronic Wallet, Mime360.com, Chakpak.com
ServicesElectronic commerce
RevenueIncrease INR60.8 billion (US$1.0 billion) (FY 2013-14)[1]
Employees10000[2]
Slogan(s)The Online Megastore
WebsiteFlipkart.com
Alexa rankpositive decrease 110; 7: India (August 2014)[3]
Type of siteOnline shopping
Advertisingyes
RegistrationOptional (required for buying Digital Content)
Available inEnglish
Launched2007; 7 years ago
Current statusOnline
Flipkart is an e-commerce company founded in 2007, by Sachin and Binny Bansal.[4] It is registered in Singapore,[5] and owned by a Singapore-based holding company.[6] It operates in India, where it is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka.[7][8] According to Alexa Internet, Flipkart's website is one of the 10 most visited websites in India.[3] Flipkart has launched its own product range under the name "DigiFlip", offering camera bags, pen-drives, headphones, computer accessories, etc.[9][10]
Legally, Flipkart is not an Indian company since it is registered in Singapore and majority of its shareholders are foreigners. Because foreign companies are not allowed to do multi-brand e-retailing in India, Flipkart sells goods in India through a company called WS Retail. Other third-party sellers or companies can also sell goods through the Flipkart platform.[5]

History

Flipkart was founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, both alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. They had been working for Amazon.com previously. The business was formally incorporated as a company in October 2008 as Flipkart Online Services Pvt. Ltd.[11] During its initial years, Flipkart focused only on books, and soon as it expanded, it started offering other products like electronic goods, air conditioners, air coolers, stationery supplies and life style products and e-books. The first product sold by them was the book Leaving Microsoft To Change The World, bought by VVK Chandra from Andhra Pradesh.[12][13][14]Flipkart now employs more than 9000 people.[15] Flipkart allows payment methods such as cash on delivery, credit or debit card transactions, net banking, e-gift voucher and card swipe on delivery.[16]

Acquisitions

  • 2010: WeRead, a social book discovery tool.[17]
  • 2011: Mime360, a digital content platform company.[18]
  • 2011: Chakpak.com, a Bollywood news site that offers updates, news, photos and videos. Flipkart acquired the rights to Chakpak's digital catalogue which includes 40,000 filmographies, 10,000 movies and close to 50,000 ratings. Flipkart has categorically said that it will not be involved with the original site and will not use the brand name.[19]
  • 2012: Letsbuy.com, an Indian e-retailer in electronics. Flipkart has bought the company for an estimated US$25 million.[20][21] Letsbuy.com was closed down and all traffic to Letsbuy have been diverted to Flipkart.[22]
  • 2014: Acquired Myntra.com in an estimated INR 2,000 crore deal.[23]

Finance

Initially, the founders had spent INR 400,000 to set up the business.[24][25] Flipkart has later raised funding from venture capital funds Accel India (US$1 million in 2009)[26][27][28]and Tiger Global (US$10 million in 2010 and US$20 million in June 2011).[29][30][31] On 24 August 2012, Flipkart announced the completion of its 4th round of $150 million funding from MIH (part of Naspers Group) and ICONIQ Capital.[32] The company announced, on 10 July 2013, that it has raised an additional $200 million from existing investors including Tiger Global, Naspers, Accel Partners and Iconiq Capital.[33]
Flipkart's reported sales were INR 40 million in FY 2008–2009,[34][35] INR 200 million in FY 2009–2010[36] and INR 750 million for FY 2010–2011.[37] In FY 2011–2012, Flipkart is set to cross the INR 5 billion (US$100 million) mark as Internet usage in the country increases and people get accustomed to making purchases online.[38] Flipkart projects its sales to reach INR 10 billion by year 2014. On average, Flipkart sells nearly 20 products per minute[39] and is aiming at generating a revenue of INR 50 billion (US$0.81 billion) by 2015.[40]
On November 2012, Flipkart became one of the companies being probed for alleged violations of FDI regulations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999[41][42]
In July 2013, Flipkart raised USD 160 million from private equity investors.[43]
In October 2013, it was reported that Flipkart had raised an additional $160 million from new investors Dragoneer Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, SofinaSA and Vulcan Inc. with participation from existing investor Tiger Global.[44][45][46]
On 26 May 2014, Flipkart announced that it has raised $210 million from Yuri Milner’s DST Global and its existing investors Tiger Global, Naspers and Iconiq Capital.[47]
In early July 2014, it was also highly speculated that Flipkart was in negotiations to raise at least $500 million, for a likely listing in the US for 2016.[48]
On 29 July 2014, Flipkart announced that it raised $1 billion[49] from Tiger Global Management LLC, Accel Partners, and Morgan Stanley Investment Management and a new investor Singapore sovereign-wealth fund GIC.[50]

Flyte Digital Music Store

In October and November 2011, Flipkart acquired the websites Mime360.com[18] and Chakpak.com.[19] Later, in February 2012, the company revealed its new Flyte Digital Music Store.[51] Flyte, a legal music download service in the vein of iTunes and Amazon.com, offered DRM-free MP3 downloads. But it was shut down on 17 June 2013 as paid song downloads did not get popular in India due to the advent of free music streaming sites.[52][53]

Exclusive Product Launches

Motorola Mobility, previously owned by Google but then sold to Lenovo, in an exclusive tie up with Flipkart launched its budget smartphone Moto G in India on 5 February 2014.[54][55] This triggered an overwhelming response from online shoppers and more than 20,000 units were sold within hours of launch on Flipkart. After the Moto G successful debut launch, Flipkart was looking for a long term tie up with Motorola Mobility.[56] The Moto G success story, led to an another exclusive tie up between Flipkart & Motorola Mobility, who launched their flagship Android smartphone, the Moto X on 19 March 2014.[57][58] After Moto G and Moto X, Flipkart invited the Moto E, the newest member of Moto family which is even cheaper than Moto G on 13 May 2014.[59] The sale of high-end smartphone Xiaomi Mi3 produced by Xiaomi Tech was launched in India on an exclusive tie-up with Flipkart. The first batch was sold out within 39 minutes[60] on 22 July 2014, the second in 5 seconds[61] on 29 July 2014. The sale was proceeded on pre-registration mode where more than 150 000 buyers booked for the 5 August 2014 sale. This got sold off in less than 2 seconds.[62] Following this Xiaomi Tech decided to sell 20,000 pieces in the next sale scheduled for 12 August 2014.[63]

In-house Products

  • In July 2014 Flipkart launched its own set of tablet phones. The first among these series of tablet phones was Digiflip Pro XT 712 Tablet.
  • In July 2014 Flipkart launched it's first networking Router, under its own brand name named DigiFlip WR001 300 Mbit/s Wireless N Router.

Awards and recognition

  • Co-Founder of Flipkart Sachin Bansal, got Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2012-2013 from Economic Times, leading Indian Economic Daily[64]
  • Flipkart.com was awarded Young Turk of the Year at CNBC TV 18's 'India Business Leader Awards 2012' (IBLA).[65]
  • Flipkart.com- got Nominated for IndiaMART Leaders of Tomorrow Awards 2011.[66]
  • Flipkart.com, secured second position in the List of Cheapest Mobile Store 2013, compiled by Indian e-commerce observer Zoutons.com.[67]

See also

References

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  2. Jump up^ "Flipkart makes it mandatory for all top executives to take customer calls - The Times of India". Timesofindia.indiatimes.com. 2014-04-26. Retrieved 2014-05-22.
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b "Flipkart.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
  4. Jump up^ "Flipkart Founders, Sachin and Binny Bansal, get million dollar paychecks".Economic Times. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  5. ^ Jump up to:a b With Flipkart raising a $1 billion, here is all you need to know about the company. DNA, 30 July 2014.
  6. Jump up^ Flipkart founders, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, get million dollar paychecks. Economic times, 15 October 2013.
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  13. Jump up^ "Flipkart goes for fashion branding - The Times of India". Timesofindia.indiatimes.com. Retrieved 5 October 2013.
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  15. Jump up^ "About Us". Flipkart.com. Retrieved 5 October 2013.
  16. Jump up^ Flipkart.com: Payments Retrieved 6 October 2012
  17. Jump up^ "Flipkart Buys Social Book Discovery Tool WeRead". VCCircle. Retrieved 15 June 2011.
  18. ^ Jump up to:a b Nikhil Pahwa. "Flipkart Acquires Mime360; To Launch Digital Distribution Of Music, E-books, Games". medianama.com. Retrieved 14 October 2011.
  19. ^ Jump up to:a b "Flipkart Acquires Digital Content From Bollywood News Site Chakpak".VCCircle. 23 November 2011. Retrieved 1 December 2011.
  20. Jump up^ "Updated: It’s Official Flipkart Acquires LetsBuy.com". medianama.com. 9 February 2012. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
  21. Jump up^ "Flipkart Buys Letsbuy in Cash-Equity Deal". Business Standard. 11 May 2012. Retrieved 9 February 2012.
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  23. Jump up^ "Big deal: Flipkart acquires online fashion retailer Myntra". The Indian Express. Retrieved 2014-05-22.
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  30. Jump up^ Sudipta Datta; Suman Tarafdar (7 February 2010). "A Tale of Two Book Fairs".Financial Express. Retrieved 19 August 2010.
  31. Jump up^ "Inlogistics: India's first private train cargo operator". CNBC-TV18. 18 March 2010. Retrieved 19 August 2010.
  32. Jump up^ Yourstory.in. "Flipkart Raises Fourth Round of Funding; MIH and Inconiq Capital Take Minority Stake".
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  35. Jump up^ Dua, Aarti (28 February 2010). "A winning chapter". The Daily Telegraph (Calcutta, India). Retrieved 19 August 2010.
  36. Jump up^ "Bibliofile:A Garage Takes Off". Outlook. 22 March 2010. Retrieved 19 August 2010.
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  39. Jump up^ Nikhil Menon (9 September 2011). "e-Commerce: Can the dotcom majors cope with their rising expectations?". The Economic Times (India).
  40. Jump up^ Tyagi, Akshay. "How Flipkart Helped India Realise Its E-Commerce Dream!". The TechIRIS. Retrieved 26 May 2012.
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  43. Jump up^ moneycontrol. "Flipkart raises $160 mn in latest funding drive".
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  47. Jump up^ Rajat Agrawal. "Flipkart raises $210 million in financing round led by DST Global". BGR.in.
  48. Jump up^ Ankit Pandey. "E-tailer Flipkart in talks to raise $500 mn for likely US listing next year; GIC & T Rowe Price keen on investing". economictimes.com.
  49. Jump up^ "Flipkart raises $1 billion from investors". Indiasnaps.com.
  50. Jump up^ Dhanya Ann Thoppil. "India's Flipkart Raises $1 Billion in Fresh Funding". wsj.com.
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  53. Jump up^ "Flyte MP3 Store Shutting Down". ThinkDigit. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  54. Jump up^ "Motorola launches Moto G smartphone in exclusive tie-up with Flipkart". Economic Times. 6 February 2014.
  55. Jump up^ "Moto G launched in India, priced at Rs 12,499 for 8GB and Rs 13,999 for 16 GB".Economic Times. 5 February 2014.
  56. Jump up^ "Flipkart eyes long-term innings with Motorola post MotoG debut". Economic Times. 10 February 2014.
  57. Jump up^ "Motorola-Flipkart to launch Moto X today, prices start at Rs 23,999". Business Standard. 19 March 2014.
  58. Jump up^ "Moto X launch tomorrow, prices start at Rs 23,999". The Economic Times. 18 March 2014.
  59. Jump up^ "Motorola-Moto E on Flipkart, priced start at Rs 6,999". 15 May 2014.
  60. Jump up^ http://www.ibtimes.co.in/xiaomi-mi3-stocks-sold-out-within-1-hour-flipkart-opens-pre-registration-29-july-sale-605044
  61. Jump up^ http://www.ibtimes.co.in/xiaomi-mi3-sold-out-5-seconds-flipkart-opens-pre-registration-window-5-august-sale-605636
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  63. Jump up^ "Flash sale of Xiomi on 12 August 2014- Economic times".
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  65. Jump up^ "Flipkart awarded at CNBC-TV18’s India Business Leader Awards 2012". Firstpost. Retrieved 10 October 2013.
  66. Jump up^ "Flipkart.com-IndiaMART Leaders of Tomorrow Awards 2011". Mediavataar. Retrieved 10 February 2012.
  67. Jump up^ "Comparative Study: Mobile Prices Indian E-Com Stores 2013". Zoutons.com. Retrieved 25 November 2013.

External links