P. Sarojini
Mumbai, India (CWBN)_ The Indian E-commerce firm Snapdeal announced a raise of 0.8 percent in its operating revenue from INR 839.4 crore in fiscal year 2019 to INR 846.4 crore in fiscal year 2020 despite the Covid-led sales turmoil in Q4. In addition, the company’s consolidated profit fell by 1% from INR 925.3 crore in 2019 to INR 916 crore in 2020 on the back of Snapdeal’s continuous investments in fiscal year 2020 in expanding the market activities, which includes video, vernacular and other strategic ventures aimed at attracting the new users to the online market.
According to the firm, Snapdeal’s losses in fiscal year 2020 stood at INR 274 crore, which is up 47 percent (by Rs 88 crore) from about INR 186 crore in fiscal year 2019, due to such initiatives. The company stated, “While the on-going financial year has seen recurrent disruptions and subdued consumer sentiment on account of safety and economic concerns, the benefit of these growth initiatives is expected to play out over the coming years”.
But, Snapdeal somehow reduced its losses dramatically from INR 5,143 crore in fiscal year 2017 to INR 188 crore in fiscal year 2019 by 95 per cent. The company reported that more than 2% of Indian buyers (27 million buyers) purchased from its market in 2020, while above 85% of its orders were delivered to customers residing in cities outside the top 10 metros.
Earlier, in October, Co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal Kunal Bahl had told the media about the acceleration in adopting to online purchases and selling. He said, “What the acceleration and online adoption by sellers did in six months, we would have expected to happen in three years. In the last six months, we’ve seen 20,000 new sellers come onto our platform and 10,000 of them just in the last 90 days. Out of them, about 5,000 are manufacturers, which I feel is a very positive trend for India in general and also for the consumers”.
