Amazon India reportedly closing in on Flipkart

BENGALURU: Amazon has almost closed the gap with Flipkart's standalone sales in 2017, behind in GMV marketshare by less than 1percentage point in 2017 from 5 percentage points in 2016, as per Forrester. However, Flipkart still leads as a group with Myntra and Jabong.

While Flipkart leads in fashion and smartphones, Amazon has taken lead in categories such as appliances, consumer electronics, and more importantly, groceries, which builds platform stickiness, said Satish Meena, a senior forecast analyst at Forrester.

Amazon is also emerging as a clear leader among metro consumers, as per a Forrester survey done among 2,000 respondents in 9 cities in 2017, wherein 80% shopped on Amazon, while 65% shopped on Flipkart.

“After surpassing Flipkart in 2016 for the first time (in metropolitan user preference), Amazon has strengthened its position as metropolitan Indian consumers’ preferred online retail destination and is aggressively closing the gap with Flipkart to become the single-largest online retailer in India in terms of sales,” a new report by Forrester, titled Online Retail Forecast (2017-2022) Asia Pacific, said.

Overall, the online retail sector saw sales worth $19.6 billion in 2017 ($20.3 billion including movie and event tickets), as per Forrester, which is expected to grow to $27 billion in 2018.

Flipkart’s standalone marketshare was 31.9%, while Amazon’s was 31.1%, as per the market research firm.

Amazon India