E-commerce majors see huge spurt in smartphone sales in festive season

E-commerce majors Flipkart, Amazon and Paytm Mall have seen a huge spurt in smartphone purchases on the first day of their festive season sales, beating last year’s figures.
According to a PTI report: Flipkart, which kicked off its ‘The Big Billion Days’ (TBBD) sale on September 20, said it has sold 1.3 million smartphones within the first 20 hours of the category opening for sale.
“The mammoth order book is 2 times the number of smartphones Flipkart sold in the same time-frame during Day 1 of TBBD’16, and surpasses the total number of smartphones sold across India in a single day, both through online and offline channels, by a big distance,” it said in a statement.
An Amazon India spokesperson said it saw a massive opening of its festive sales.
“…we have already seen a 100 per cent increase over previous Diwali, even before the end of Day One. For smartphones, we saw an even larger gain,” the spokesperson told PTI.
The boom in sale of smartphones is on account of various offers and discounts being offered on various e-commerce sites, coupled with affordable payment solutions like ‘No Cost EMIs’, exchange and buyback offers.
E-commerce players have also entered into exclusive tie-ups with handset makers to launch new phones on their platform exclusively.
Most companies will end their sale around September 24-25 and are likely to commence another round just before Diwali.
ShopClues, which focuses on Tier II and III towns, has launched a feature phone on its platform — Inovu i7 — priced at Rs 349.
Alibaba-backed Paytm Mall, which was spun off from One97 Communications earlier this year, said it aims to sell 10X the volume of smartphones sold on an average day.
“We are offering the lowest price on smartphones and you can compare it with any other platform. We are confident that the smartphone sales at our platform will grow in leaps and bounds, given the unbeatable offers this festive season, Chief Operating Officer, Paytm Mall, Amit Sinha told PTI.