Flipkart shutters Jabong, bats for Myntra: Report

Flipkart has reportedly shut operations at online retail platform Jabong, with the portal now redirecting to the Myntra website.

The Walmart-owned e-commerce company had acquired Jabong for $70 million in 2016, but saw a close to 13 percent drop in app downloads for the brand in December 2019, The Times of India reported.

Data from web analytics site SimilarWeb showed that Jabong downloads dropped 12.71 percent in December 2019 alone. It also saw a steady decline in daily active users with December 2019 numbers down 10.61 percent, the paper said.

Inversely, the Myntra app saw a 41.18 percent rise in downloads and 31.87 percent rise in daily active users. The move is thus being seen as push for the company’s premium fashion brand Myntra, the paper added. Flipkart had acquired Myntra in 2014.

Jabong and Myntra occupy 70 percent market share in India’s online apparel retail space.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the numbers.

Experts told the paper the move makes sense as it is cost efficient and would help Flipkart align operations and marketing budget. It also comes as no surprise since Flipkart in July 2019 cut marketing spend on Jabong, which was reallocated to Myntra.