Ecom Express bullish on growth, to raise funds by yr-end

Ecom Express, the Warburg Pincus-backed logistics services firm, is aiming to triple shipments to 150 million units this fiscal, riding on rapid e-commerce sector growth in the country.

The Delhi-based company, which now covers all PIN codes in six states, also aims to extend full coverage to over 23 states in the next two-and-a-half years.

"We have seen tremendous growth in the last three years, helped by the boom in e-commerce sector. For the year ended March 2016, we saw shipments touching 50 million units and we are confident of this growing up to three times by the end of this fiscal," Ecom Express Director K Satyanarayana told PTI.

He, however, declined to comment on the revenue details.

Ecom has recently opened its 1,000th delivery centre in Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh and now covers the whole state.

"We now have 100 per cent coverage in six states -- Delhi, Haryana, Goa, AP, Tamil Nadu and Telangana -- serving about 10,000 PIN codes. Our goal is to extend full coverage to over 23 states and 80 per cent PIN codes of the country in the next two-and-a-half years," he said.

He added that certain regions in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh could be left out of coverage as there aren't enough shipments coming in from these locations.

Ecom Express had raised USD 133 million (over Rs 850 crore) from Warburg Pincus in June last year, which is the largest round of funding raised to date in the Indian logistics sector.

"We are growing at a phenomenal pace. We are aggressively setting up centres across states to facilitate faster and more efficient delivery. While we had raised funds last year from Warburg, we may look at raising another round, three times the size of the previous one, by the end of the year," Satyanarayana said.

Ecom Express offers services like cash-on-delivery, dropship services, reverse logistics services and other value added services to e-commerce players like Snapdeal, Amazon, Paytm and ShopClues.

Logistics solutions companies in India like Delhivery (Tiger Global-backed) and Ecom have scaled at a rapid pace, driven by the growth and acceptance of online retail in the country.

Snapdeal has invested in logistics firm GoJavas, while Flipkart has Ekart for its delivery services.

While India's e-commerce sector is currently estimated at USD 3 billion, estimates suggest it could be close to USD 40 billion by 2019.