Has Amazon overtaken Flipkart? New numbers reopen the debate

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• According to a report by Barclays, Amazon dominates Indian retail market with gross sales of $7.5 billion compared to that of Flipkart, which recorded gross sales of $6.2 billion for FY18 excluding its subsidiaries – Myntra and Jabong.
  
• However, industry experts point out that the two e-retailers can not be compared due to different parameters they use to evaluate growth.
  
• In terms of revenues, Flipkart recorded a revenue of $3.8 billion, which was $600 million more than that of Amazon’s $3.2 billion.

Online retailers Amazon and Flipkart have been competing neck and neck in India, but the jury is still out on who dominates the Indian market.

That is because the online retailers usually rely on different parameters to evaluate their growth — gross merchandise value, and revenue.

The two were recently evaluated on their gross sales they made for their most recent financial year. According to a estimates by Barclays, Amazon surpassed Flipkart’s gross sales at $7.5 billion compared to latter’s $6.2 billion, Times of India reported citing Barclays. The number, however, excludes gross sales of Flipkart’s subsidiaries – Myntra and Jabong, estimated to be around $2 billion, according to Times of India.

However, in terms of revenues, Flipkart recorded a revenue of $3.8 billion, which was $600 million more than that of Amazon’s $3.2 billion.

The overall growth rate of Amazon over the previous year saw an increase of about 82%, while Flipkart recorded a growth of 47%, in terms of revenue, according to BloombergQuint. For the current financial year, ending in March 2019, Amazon’s gross sales is predicted to increase to $11.2 billion, which is 30% more than that estimated for Flipkart — $8.7 billion, said the Barclays report.

According to an analysis by LiveMint, while the Barclays report evaluated Amazon Pay, it did not include Flipkart’s payment company PhonePe.

Flipkart has recently claimed that it is nearly double the size of Amazon. That estimate is based on numbers that show increasing revenues and market share in the past two years.

Wal-mart acquired Flipkart earlier this year for $16 billion. With the backing of the US retail giant, it’s likely it will be a close race between the two.