Flipkart

History

Flipkart was founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, both alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. They worked for Amazon.com, and left to create their new company incorporated in October 2007 as Flipkart Online Services Pvt. Ltd. The first product they sold was the book Leaving Microsoft To Change The World to a customer from Hyderabad. Flipkart now employs more than 33,000 people.

After the failure of its 2014 Big Billion Sale, Flipkart carried out a second Big Billion Sale. where it is reported that they saw a business turnover of $300 million in gross merchandise volume.

Business Structure

In a report dated 25 November 2014, a leading media outlet reported that Flipkart were operating through a complex business structure which included nine firms, some registered in Singapore and some in India. In 2012 Flipkart co-founders sold WS Retail to a consortium of investors led by Rajeev Kuchhal.

Acquisitions

Investments

Finance

Initially, they had spent ₹400,000 (US$5,900) only for making the website to set up the business. Flipkart has later raised funding from venture capital funds Accel India ($1 million in 2009) and Tiger Global ($10 million in 2010 and $20 million in June 2011). On 24 August 2012, Flipkart announced the completion of its 4th round of $150 million funding from MIH (part of Naspers Group) and ICONIQ Capital. The company announced, on 10 July 2013, that it has raised an additional $200 million from existing investors including Tiger Global, Naspers, Accel Partners and Iconiq Capital.

Flipkart's reported sales were ₹40 million (US$590,000) in FY 2008–2009, ₹200 million (US$3.0 million) in FY 2009–2010 and ₹750 million (US$11 million) for FY 2010–2011. In FY 2011–2012, Flipkart is set to cross the ₹5 billion (US$74 million) mark as Internet usage in the country increases and people get accustomed to making purchases online. Flipkart projects its sales to reach ₹10 billion (US$150 million) by year 2014. On average, Flipkart sells nearly 10 products per minute and is aiming at generating a revenue of ₹50 billion (US$740 million) by 2015.

On November 2012, Flipkart became one of the companies being probed for alleged violations of FDI regulations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999

Flipkart reported a loss of ₹2.81 billion (US$42 million) for the FY 2012–13. In July 2013, Flipkart raised $160 million from private equity investors.

In October 2013, it was reported that Flipkart had raised an additional $160 million from new investors Dragoneer Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, Sofina SA and Vulcan Inc. with participation from existing investor Tiger Global.

On 26 May 2014, Flipkart announced that it has raised $210 million from Yuri Milner’s DST Global and its existing investors Tiger Global, Naspers and Iconiq Capital.

In early July 2014, it was also highly speculated that Flipkart was in negotiations to raise at least $500 million, for a likely listing in the US for 2016.

On 29 July 2014, Flipkart announced that it raised $1 billion from Tiger Global Management LLC, Accel Partners, and Morgan Stanley Investment Management and a new investor Singapore sovereign-wealth fund GIC.

On 6 October 2014, Flipkart sold products worth ₹6.5 billion (US$97 million) in 10 hours in a special one-day event – "The Big Billion Day", claiming they had created e-commerce history, but their hard-won reputation for good customer service suffered because of technical problems, and angry reactions on social media from buyers disappointed with the pricing and availability of products. It claimed to sell a whopping 500,000 mobile handsets, 500,000 clothes and shoes and 25,000 television sets within hours of opening its discounted sale at 8 AM. In December 2014, After it received $700 million from another funding, Flipkart had a market cap of $11 billion. In May 2015 Flipkart has raised $550 million from some of its existing investors, in a deal that raises the valuation of the privately held Indian startup to about $15 billion.

On 20 December 2014, Flipkart announced filing application with Singapore-based companies' regulator ACRA to become a public company after raising $700 million for long term strategic investments in India following which its number of investors exceeded 50. The $700 million fund raised by Flipkart added new investors—Baillie Gifford, Greenoaks Capital, Steadview Capital, T. Rowe Price Associates and Qatar Investment Authority—on company's board.Its existing investors DST Global, GIC, ICONIQ Capital and Tiger Global also participated in this latest financing round.

By August 2015, after raising $700 million, Flipkart had already raised a total of $3 billion, over 12 rounds and 16 investors.

Regulatory Action and Lawsuits

The Government Of India informed the parliament in 2012, that it had asked the Enforcement Directorate to investigate Flipkart Online Services. In August 2014, the Enforcement Directorate claimed that it had found Flipkart to be in violation of the Foreign Exchange Management Act.

On 30 November 2012, Flipkarts offices were raided by the Enforcement Directorate. Documents and computer hard drives were seized by the regulatory agency.

Delhi High Court observed violation of foreign investment regulations by E-Commerce firms including Flipkart.

In January 2016, a public interest litigation came up for hearing which alleges Flipkart of contravention of foreign investment norms. The court asked the Reserve Bank of India to provide the latest circular on foreign investment policy.

In January 2016, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) clarified that it does not recognize the marketplace model of online retail.

In February 2016, Health Minister, J P Nadda, informed that the Maharashtra FDA had taken action against Flipkart, among others, for selling drugs without valid license.

Flyte Digital Music Store

In October and November 2011, Flipkart acquired the websites Mime360.com and Chakpak.com. Later, in February 2012, the company revealed its new Flyte Digital Music Store. Flyte, a legal music download service in the vein of iTunes and Amazon.com, offered DRM-free MP3 downloads. But it was shut down on 17 June 2013 as paid song downloads did not get popular in India due to the advent of free music streaming sites.

Exclusive product launches

Motorola Mobility, previously owned by Google but then sold to Lenovo, in an exclusive tie up with Flipkart launched its budget smartphone Moto G in India on 5 February 2014; more than 20,000 units were sold within hours of launch on Flipkart. After this Flipkart was looking for a long term tie up with Motorola Mobility, They also launched their Android smartphone, the Moto X, on 19 March 2014. Flipkart later sold the Moto E, cheaper than Moto G, from 13 May 2014.

The sale of high-end smartphone Xiaomi Mi3 produced by Xiaomi Tech was launched in India on an exclusive tie-up with Flipkart. The first batch was sold out within 39 minutes on 22 July 2014, the second in 5 seconds on 29 July 2014. The sale was proceeded on pre-registration mode where more than 150,000 buyers booked for 5 August 2014 sale. This got sold off in less than 2 seconds. Following this Xiaomi Tech sold 20,000 units in the next sale on 12 August 2014. On 2 September 2014 Flipkart held a flash sale of the Xiaomi Redmi 1S budget Android smartphone which was launched in India in July 2014. 40, 000 units priced at Rs 5999 each were sold within seconds. A further 40,000 units were sold within 4.5 seconds on 9 September 2014. The third Redmi 1S sale on 16 September 2014 sold 40,000 units in 3.4 seconds; In the 4th round of sale of Redmi 1S, 60,000 units sold in 5.2 seconds on 23 September 2014. On 30 September 2014 60,000 units sold in 13.9 seconds. Redmi Note in India exclusively through Flipkart; 50,000 units sold in 6 seconds on 2 December 2014.

In-house products

Criticism

On 13 September 2014, a Flipkart delivery boy allegedly molested a house maid in Hyderabad. The house maid's employer has been fighting against Flipkart for justice on this issue, and also for making offline delivery services safe.

On 6 October 2014 Flipkart launched a promotion called 'Big Billion Day' with the intention to increase the popularity of their website by targeting a billion sales in 1 day. This, even though Flipkart achieved the target, led to public outcry and widespread criticism among consumers, competitors and partners, heavily damaging its reputation. Many users could not place orders because of high server load and errors which led to frustration among customers. Many users who placed orders received emails stating that their orders were cancelled. Most of the products were sold for less than cost price, and Flipkart was accused of killing competition. Major competitors filed complaints against Flipkart to the commerce ministry, claiming that selling products lesser than cost prices is against the commerce policy of the country. The Ministry said that they would formulate new trade rules for electronic retail after this incident.

Flipkart received mass criticism on the subject of net neutrality after their announced partnership with Airtel to use the Airtel Zero platform which would have made the Flipkart app free for Airtel Users. On 14 April 2015 Flipkart retracted its decision to use Airtel Zero platform.

Awards and recognition