Flipkart’s founder Sachin Bansal is busy having meetings with cell-phone manufacturers these days. No it is not for adding more ranges within the mobile category, but for rolling out inbuilt applications in newer handsets. This is a part of tapping the “huge” opportunity that emerges from mobile e-commerce (m-commerce).
Flipkart is close to inking a deal with domestic handset manufacturer Micromax for the apps while it is also in talks with other leading companies.
“M-commerce is the next big wave that will take over the whole e-commerce in next three years. And we are going to take a big leap in that. We already have launched mobile apps. About 20 per cent of our traffic comes through mobile, up from zero two years back,” he said.
According to a Snapdeal study, m-commerce has grown by 10 times in the last 12 months.
Not only Flipkart, but other online players are also looking at m-commerce as next big thing. Ankit Khanna, Vice-President (Product Head), Snapdeal.com said, “India is one of the fastest growing markets for mobile phones and since almost everybody owns a mobile phone these days, m-commerce has seen to grow tremendously.”
While for Snapdeal about 30 per cent of the orders come from mobile phones, for eBay it is about 23 per cent. Online food ordering portal FoodPanda says about 20 per cent of its orders are through mobile phones, says its founder Rohit Chadda.
He said the repeat orders at twice through mobile than on website. For Snapdeal, about 60 per cent of the new visitors come through mobiles. According to online players, entry of cheaper Android-based smartphones, making purchase decisions on the go, growing young consumer base, and easy and secure payment solution on mobile are reasons for m-commerce to pick up even in smaller towns. However, at present, 75 per cent of the mobile-based transactions involve cash on delivery. There are nearly 871 million mobile subscribers in India, according to TRAI numbers as of September-end 2013. Of this, 40.25 per cent are rural subscribers. With mobiles becoming a necessity rather than a luxury item, Bharti Airtel and other operators have launched platforms that allow instant transfer of money on mobile Internet.
Mobile internet traffic According to an Amazon spokesperson, the mobile Internet traffic has outweighed the computer traffic and it now becomes crucial for online shopping firms to invest in creating mobile platforms to capture greater market share in this space.