70% of e-commerce sales to soon come via smartphones

Shopping online through smartphones is expected to be a game changer shortly and industry experts believe that m-commerce would contribute up to 70% of their total revenues.

"In India, the mobile internet traffic now outweighs personal computer traffic. With increasing penetration of smartphones, India is all set to be a massive market for m-commerce. The marketing strategies for e-commerce companies will increasingly be tailored to suit the rising adoption of smartphones, social media and improving customer experience across touch points and platforms," Amazon India vice president and country manager Amit Agarwal said.

He said that more than 40% of their traffic comes from mobile devices.

Mobile internet users in India are estimated to be 120 million compared to 100 million users logging online on their personal computers.

"Close to 60% of our orders are coming over mobile now. It is growing really fast. We get more traffic on the mobile than we get on personal computers. Within the next 12 months over 75% of our orders will be on mobile," Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl said.

Fashion portal retailer Myntra.com expects close to 70% of revenue coming through mobiles this fiscal.

"Myntra.com has witnessed phenomenal activity on the m-commerce front, with smartphones gaining prominence as the preferred mode to access and shop for fashion brands in the country.

"Currently, close to 50% of our business is driven by m-commerce and with the launch of our Mobile App across all platforms (Android, iOS and Windows), we expect this figure to grow to 70% by end of this fiscal," Myntra chief product and technology officer Shamik Sharma said.

M-commerce is estimated to be 30% of the $3 billion e-tailing industry and is likely to grow to nearly 40% of the industry that is expected to be $32 billion by 2020, according to Technopak senior vice president, retail and consumer products, Ankur Bisen.

Flipkart senior director of marketing, Mausam Bhatt said e-commerce industry is gradually progressing to be a m-commerce industry.

"I think the way e-commerce industry is evolving it is becoming more of a mobile-commerce industry. If you look at Flipkart a year ago, less than 10% of our orders, transactions and visits used to come from mobile commerce. Now those numbers are greater than 50% for us. It is accelerating at a very rapid pace. We are seeing more than 2 times or 3 times growth from the mobile front compared to desktop, where Flipkart is growing overall but mobile is growing at a much faster pace," he said.

Xolo launches Opus 3 ‘selfie’ phone at Rs 8,499

Xolo has launched a new budget smartphone, Opus 3, at Rs 8,499.

The phone sports a 5-inch (720X1080p) IPS HD display.

It is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core processor and 1GB RAM. It comes with 8GB internal storage and supports microSD card slots of up to 32GB for expansion. The phone has a 2500mAh battery.

It runs Android 4.4 KitKat. The phone features motion control technology which makes the use of accelerometer and proximity sensor to control Music player, FM radio, Gallery, Camera and calls. It also allows access to multiple apps via Float Task on a dual window operation mode, for multitasking.

Xolo Opus 3 sports an 8MP Sony Exmor R rear camera with auto-focus, support for full-HD recording and dual-LED flash, and a 5MP front-facing camera with a 88-degree wide-angle lens, flash and BSI Sensor.

In terms of connectivity, the dual-sim phone offers 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS.

Online fashion commerce boosts Bestseller's 2013-14 revenue

Danish fashion niche retailer Bestseller, whose brands like Vero Moda compete with market leaders H&M and Zara, said its pre-tax profit rose 21% in 2013-2014 as it pared down on stores and boosted its internet business.

Revenues rose 5% to 20.1 billion Danish crowns ($3.4 billion) in the 2013-14 financial year while pretax profit grew to 1.7 billion crowns, the unlisted firm said late on Thursday.

Earlier this month the company said its Bestseller Retail Europe division, which runs physical stores and accounts for about 10% of its total revenue, would close every 20th store after profits for that division fell by 50%.

"Through an increased focus on our operations and through an even closer collaboration with our partners and customers, we have managed to grow and create better results in a challenging market," chief executive Anders Holch Povlsen said.

Povlsen, son of the founder of Bestseller and Denmark's second richest man, said the synergies between physical stores and e-commerce has become more critical than ever.

"Our goal is that the digital options available become a larger part of Bestseller's DNA and that the link between the physical stores and our online activities becomes even more natural," Povlsen said in the annual report.

Bestseller has more than 3,000 stores across 38 markets worldwide and an online presence in 70 markets, with mid-market brands such as Vero Moda, Pieces, Mamalicious and high mid-market brands such as Selected Femme and Selected Homme.

Despite a solid revenue growth of 5%, the company was behind H&M and Zara, which posted growth of 9% and 8% respectively at their last annual reports.

At $40 billion, Uber bigger than Twitter and Hertz

Uber Technologies investors are betting the five-year-old car-booking app is more valuable than Twitter and Hertz Global Holdings.

The startup is close to raising a round of financing that would value it between $35 billion and $40 billion, according to people familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified because the details are private. T Rowe Price Group is in discussions to be a new investor and existing investor Fidelity Investments is also set to participate in the funding, the people said.

"At this valuation, investors appear to be thinking that when Uber goes public, it might be worth $80 billion to $100 billion," said Anand Sanwal, chief executive officer of CB Insights, a research firm in New York. "This type of mega-financing affords Uber a great deal of flexibility in terms of when they might go public."

If Uber completes the funding, the valuation of as much as $40 billion would more than double its $17 billion value from a June financing round. That would also put Uber at about 1.5 times the capitalization of microblogging service Twitter and at the same size as Salesforce.com, Delta Airlines and Kraft Foods Group. It would dwarf car-rental company Hertz, which has a market capitalization of $11 billion.

The funding talks show that investors' appetite for growth wasn't affected by the fallout from remarks made last week by senior vice president Emil Michael about prying into journalists' private lives.

"Uber has done a lot of ill-considered things, but I still wish I were its investor," said David Cowan, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.

Record Valuation

Uber is seeking to raise at least $1 billion, the people said. The financing hasn't closed and the terms and investor group may still change, one of the people said. T Rowe previously considered investing in Uber and may still end up passing this time, two of the people said. Representatives for Uber, T Rowe and Fidelity declined to comment yesterday.

Already in June, Uber's valuation was a record for a US technology startup in a direct investment round. That put it at the front of a pack of elite US technology startups that are valued in the eleven-digit range, including Airbnb and Dropbox.

Such valuations are spreading internationally. In China, smartphone maker Xiaomi is in talks for a funding round that would value it at $40 billion to $50 billion, people familiar with the matter have said.

Uber is raising more money to finance its international expansion, people close to the situation said earlier this month. The company, founded in 2009 by Garrett Camp and chief executive officer Travis Kalanick, has rolled out its car-booking services to more than 220 cities worldwide.

Uber has run into controversies during its fast expansion, including roiling established taxi and limousine industries and facing regulatory hurdles. Some drivers for the service have also complained about the company's commission structure.

Last week, Uber introduced a rewards program for drivers and hired law firm Hogan Lovells to conduct an internal review on its data-privacy.

Samsung retains top position in Indian smartphone market: IDC

Korean giant Samsung continued to be the smartphone market leader in India with 24%, followed by Micromax (20%) and Lava (8%), research firm IDC in a statement said.

The research firm said that Samsung has witnessed shipment growth in Q3 2014 but it has been lower than than the industry average.

"There is a contraction in their (Samsung) market share", IDC added.

The finding puts Karbonn (also 8% market share) together with Lava at third slot and said that more than 85% of Karbonn's shipment volume is supported by handsets priced less than $100.

"Lava's feature phone business shaped up well in Q3 2014. It was able to clinch the fourth spot in the overall mobile phone business surpassing Karbonn," it added.

The research firm ranks Motorola at fifth position with 5% of the smartphone market pie.

Vendors shipped 23.3 million smartphones during Q3 2014, IDC, in its quarterly mobile phone tracker report said and added that India is the fastest growing market in the Asia Pacific region

With 23.3 million shipments in the quarter, smartphones demonstrated 27% quarter-on-quarter growth and a robust 82% year-on-year growth.

"Smartphone with screen size between 4.5-inch and 5.5-inch are seen as the sweet spot for consumer preference. Consumer need higher screen size phone to enjoy media content and with the 4G rollout expected in CY2015, we expect Phablets segment to pick up again" Kiran Kumar, research manager, Client Devices IDC India said.

Samsung also led the overall market but it's gap with second place Micromax narrowed in the quarter, IDC said.

Snapdeal logs onto rural India

Online retail is poised for a hyper jump into rural India. To go one up on archrival Flipkart, Snapdeal — one of the country's largest e-tailers — plans to tap 50 lakh low-income households in slums and villages across the country. These include places such as Dharavi (Mumbai), which is Asia's largest slum, Govindpuri, one of the biggest slums in Delhi, and villages in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana, among many others.

Snapdeal will launch around 5,000 e-commerce kiosks across 65 cities and 70,000 rural areas by the end of next year with the help of FINO PayTech, an Indian financial inclusion solutions company. These e-commerce centers will be manned by village-level entrepreneurs, have personal computers and tablets, and also serve as collection and delivery points of packages since most people living in these areas usually have no permanent addresses. Additionally, they will help consumers with zero internet connectivity to shop online.

"I am going into this thinking that we will be able to reach 5-10 crore new consumers in the next three years," Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal, told TOI. At present, Snapdeal has around 3 crore registered users.

Interestingly, initial pilot runs by these kiosks have revealed that the average ticket size of purchases by rural consumers is not too far behind that of urban consumers. "It is Rs 1,400 compared to Rs 2,000 from urban areas," said Bahl.

Snapdeal will be offering a special assortment of utility-cum-aspirational products, such as speakers, juicers, solar lanterns, diner sets, cameras and mobile phones. These products will be curated on an exclusive page that will require login by a FINO agent, who would place an order, collect payment, receive and deliver to people who have no permanent address.

"This channel has great potential. For instance, we call people from Dharavi the HNIs (high net worth individual) of slums," said Rishi Gupta, executive director and COO of FINO PayTech.

Tatas plans e-marketplace foray

Tata Group has started putting together a team for its proposed big-bang foray into e-commerce marketplace under Ashutosh Pandey, former COO of the Group's bookstore chain Landmark.

The Group has also roped in Sarvesh Dwivedi, who has been heading the lifestyle division of eBay India, three people familiar with Tatas' plans told ET.

Gurvinderjit Singh Samra, who has worked with Tata Group's different arms, including its life-science and healthcare unit, Titan and Indian Hotels, has joined the e-commerce team, two of them said. "Obviously there is a small team as things are currently being sketched," one of them said.

Latif Nathani, managing director of eBay India, confirmed the departure of Dwivedi from the company, but said he is not sure where Dwivedi is headed. Prior to eBay, Dwivedi worked with Myntra.com and Reliance Retail among other firms.

ET had in September reported that the Tatas are preparing for an entry into India's lucrative e-commerce business with a marketplace model similar to Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal. A spokesperson for Tata Sons said that the Group has "interest" in e-commerce, but refused to share details for the proposed venture. "As we had told you on September 22, e-commerce is of interest to the Tata Group, and we will share more information at the appropriate moment," the person said in an emailed reply to ET.

Tatas currently run e-commerce portals for its Croma consumer electronics chain and Landmark bookstores. Its proposed new e-commerce marketplace, which will provide an online platform for small and large vendors and retailers to sell their wares, is expected to be launched next year.

In the initial phase Tata Group plans to sell products from its own brands including Star Bazaar supermarket and Westside department store. The company is also in talks with its joint venture partner Inditex to get Spanish brand Zara on board as well.

E-commerce in India is expected to almost double in two years to $20 billion by 2015 from $11 billion in 2013, according to a just-released report by Motilal Oswal Securities.