Flipkart achieves $1 billion Sales

India's e-commerce posterboy Flipkart said on Thursday that its sales have hit an annualized run rate of $1 billion. This comes barely eight months after it said that it was witnessing a run rate of $500 million, indicating that e-commerce in India is accelerating, and much more so than previously anticipated.

Flipkart had planned to touch $1 billion in sales only by 2015, but the current run rate indicates that they will hit the figure one year ahead of target.
"In March 2011, we announced that by 2015 we wanted to hit $1 billion in GMV (gross merchandize value). At that point in time our run rate was $10 million. Today, we are really proud and excited to announce that we have hit a run rate of $1 billion GMV one year before our target. This means that we have grown 100 times in the last three years," said Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in a statement.
The acceleration comes on the back of the $360 million that Flipkart raised from private equity funds last year. Since 2007, the Bangalore-based e-tailer has raised $540 million from investors including South African media giant Naspers, Tiger Global, Accel Partners, Dragoneer, Morgan Stanley, Sofina and Vulcan Capital.

Flipkart started as an online bookstore, but is now present across numerous categories, including fashion and electronics and is beginning to get into white goods and furniture. It also now operates a marketplace model under which it allows retailers to offer their products on their platform, similar to how Amazon started in India last year.

Flipkart's closest competitor Snapdeal, in which eBay now has around a 20% stake, is expected to end this financial year with sales (GMV) of Rs 2,000 crore. Last week, eBay led a $134 million (Rs 830 crore) investment in the New Delhi-based Snapdeal.

India's e-commerce market is estimated by research firm Forrester to touch $8.8 billion in 2016, though some say it could be as high as $16 billion by then. The country's internet users have swelled to 200 million with over 20 million of them transacting online.