Online smartphone sales in the country is set to surpass offline sales for the first time this quarter, led by India’s largest e-commerce marketplace Flipkart and American e-tail behemoth Amazon.

The festival season from October to December is expected to witness the sale of 36 million smartphones, of which 19.1 million smartphones will be sold online, with 85 per cent of the sales happening on Flipkart and Amazon.

From 40 per cent at present, online sale of smartphones will peak to 53 per cent, overtaking offline legacy channels during the Oct-Dec quarter, reveals a report by research and consulting firm, techARC.

Sales of smartphones are estimated to generate a staggering $6.36 billion calculated on an ASP (average selling price) of ₹13,026, during the quarter. Of this, online would contribute $3.67 billion, calculated on an ASP of ₹14,200, of which $3.2 billion would be sold on Flipkart and Amazon.

Since smartphone sales contribute to 50 per cent of the overall sales on e-commerce marketplaces, both Flipkart and Amazon have gone to great lengths to ink exclusive partnerships with top smartphone brands such as Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung, Apple etc, covering the entire price spectrum from budget to luxury segments in readiness for the biggest festival season sale.

According to the report, Flipkart has 34 and Amazon has 20 of the latest exclusive smartphone models that have been launched after July 2018 or are to be launched by 31st October with Flipkart offering a wider choice from budget, middle to luxury segments. While Flipkart will offer a total range of 70 exclusive models from brands such as ASUS, Honor, Oppo, Poco, Realme, Samsung and Xiaomi; Amazon will offer 40 models from brands including Honor, OnePlus, Samsung, Xiaomi and Vivo.

“From the number of models as well as the price segments being served that are exclusively available over the two platforms, Flipkart with its relatively hedged portfolio takes the lead in this upcoming potential to earn over $3.67 billion by selling smartphones. For Amazon, OnePlus 6T sales are going to be pivotal in how much of the smartphone pie it can make” said Faisal Kawoosa, founder and principal analyst at techARC .

“This year, we are offering smartphones that cut across price segments from the Redmi 6A (₹6,000), Redmi 6 Pro (₹11,000) to the OnePlus 6 (₹40,000) to address the needs of the mass and premium market segments” Manish Tiwary, Vice President – Category Management, Amazon India told BusinessLine .

Flipkart’s Senior Director, Smartphones category, Ayyapan Rajagopal expects one out of two smartphones sold in the country to be sold on Flipkart.

“Smartphones is one of the biggest categories for Flipkart. Our smartphone selection for Big Billion Days sale ranges from ₹2,999-1,50,000, to match every budget. We have 65 per cent of the online smartphone marketshare, which will increase to 80 per cent during the 30-day festive season, after which our marketshare will be 70 per cent by December” he said.

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