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Snapdeal Is A Rare Exception In Indian E-Commerce, Says CEO Kunal Bahl

About 80 percent of Snapdeal’s business is now coming from small towns and cities, says CEO Kunal Bahl.

Kunal Bahl, chief executive officer of Snapdeal. (Photographer: Kuni Takahashi/Bloomberg)
Kunal Bahl, chief executive officer of Snapdeal. (Photographer: Kuni Takahashi/Bloomberg)

The co-founder and chief executive of Snapdeal wrote today about how the e-commerce firm managed to cut its losses sharply in the year ended March as it continues its turnaround.

The SoftBank-backed e-commerce firm’s loss fell 70 percent year-on-year to Rs 186 crore, Kunal Bahl said in a blogpost.

Consolidated revenue, Bahl said, rose almost twofold to Rs 925 crore over the pervious year and revenue from operations grew 87 percent to Rs 813 crore. “This makes us the proud exception in Indian e-commerce, where greater growth usually means greater losses.”

The company’s turnaround, Snapdeal 2.0, came as it moved towards seller-branded products, with about 80 percent of business coming from small towns and cities, Bahl said. This market, he said, is worth $163 billion and comprises nearly 400 million potential buyers.

Snapdeal, which survived a failed merger with larger rival Flipkart over two years ago, said its product selection has grown to over 200 million listings. In the last two years, the company said it has seen over 60,000 new sellers coming on board, adding over 50 million new listings.

The company, which posted a profit in June 2018, is investing to fuel growth. We’re not aiming for triple-digit growth rates as that can’t be achieved without compromising on economics and experience, he said. “Consistently compounding revenue growth create large and valuable enterprises.”

The Delhi-based company, which was planning to acquire peer Shopclues, called of talks last month as concerns emerged from due diligence that was conducted by EY.