MOBILE..NEXT SHOPPING CHANNEL

Flipkart expects orders made from mobile handsets of customers to account for a significant part of sales in 18-24 months as the online marketplace major bets big on growth in India with the spread of the Internet and affordable smartphones. At present, 20 per cent of the orders on the e-commerce firm are made using mobile apps and the number of users visiting the portal through their handsets is increasing. "Given the growth rates we are at, it is about one and a half to two years," Flipkart Senior VP (Marketing) Ravi Vora told PTI when asked about the time frame in which orders generated from mobile handsets will account for a major part of its sales. Vora said: "I wouldn't go as far as saying that we will become a pure play m-commerce company, but the numbers and projections and growth are coming from this channel and we are investing and very aggressively pushing ourselves in making a large play in this channel." Quoting a recent Boston Consulting Group report, he said at present, about 45 per cent of online consumers in India use only their mobile devices to access the Internet and this is expected to rise to 60 per cent over the next three years. Almost all e-commerce companies are seeing an increase in mobile traffic and Flipkart believes that this trend will only gain momentum, he added. "Over the past few months we have rolled out our native apps across all major OS platforms (Android, iOS and Windows) and this has resulted in 20 per cent of orders overall coming in from our apps," he said. Mobile traffic is growing at twice the rate of desktops and in a year's time, Flipkart expects over 50 per cent of its orders to come in from mobile devices, with many customers from smaller towns. "We expect a bulk of business to come from non-metros in the coming years through the mobile route," he added. Mobile commerce will remain an important focus area for Flipkart in its endeavour to create an easy-to-use interface and interactive shopping experience. "We have been going on air with our mobile campaign and we believe mobile is the big driver for growth in the country in the near future. Today, we are also doing phase 2 of the same campaign and giving special offers to users to book orders through their mobiles," Vora said. Flipkart, which employs over 10,000 people, has 18 million registered users with about 3.5 million daily visits.