Flipkart continues to drive strong growth in gross merchandise value (GMV), Walmart said, adding it was prioritising the holiday season in major markets including India which is expected to launch the country's biggest e-commerce sale – Big Billion Days, around Diwali.
"We’re continuing to see strength in all of the categories that we’ve got, but we’re prioritising the holiday season coming up. And then in India, we’re prioritizing Big Billion Day, which is the Diwali Festival, which is coming up in early November," said Judith McKenna, president and CEO of Walmart International.
The announcement comes at a time when the Indian government is coming up specific rules on flash sales.
As per the draft Consumer Protection Rules for the e-commerce sector, the government seeks to ban ''flash sales'' on e-commerce platforms if such sales are organised by fraudulently intercepting the ordinary course of business using technological means with an intent to enable only a specified seller or group of sellers managed by such entity to sell goods or services on the platform.
Last year, the company had claimed that half of its new customers came from Tier III and plus cities. This was across all categories on Day 1 of its Big Billion Days.
While the company did not share the exact number of customers, it said smaller towns were increasingly adapting to digitisation. Walmart also said that Flipkart's customer stickiness was increasing with its subscription program Flipkart Plus.
"It’s a tiered program based on spend that helps us drive higher repeat rates. Customers in the program transact more frequently and we see lower churn than others," said Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart Inc.
Flipkart which last month announced a $3.6 billion investment round was acquired by Walmart in 2018.
The current round takes its valuation to $37.6 billion, giving it firepower to compete with Amazon, Tata Digital Reliance in India, even as it prepares for a public listing in the US in the coming year.
"There were large votes of confidence from a strong group of investors, and we’ll put those dollars to work to deliver growth in key areas such as grocery, fashion and our supply chain," said McMillon.
"We continue to build a very sizable e-commerce business around the world. In fact, we’re on-track to deliver $75 billion in global e-commerce sales this year and on our way to $100 billion in the near term. We’re also seeing continued strong US market share gains in grocery, which is a key part of our business," he added.
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