Emerging-market consumers wrote this success story

Article Excerpt

Flipkart is an e-commerce company based in Bengaluru, India, and founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal. The company first focused on book sales, before expanding into other product categories such as consumer electronics, fashion and lifestyle products. In 2008, the company received around 100 orders per day and achieved sales of $600,000. This grew rapidly through creative partnerships and acquisitions. By 2017, sales reached $2.9 billion, although the company was still losing money. Flipkart regularly holds major sales events. In October 2014, the company sold $100 million worth of goods in 10 hours on their Big Billion Day. Also in 2014, the company promoted the Xiaomi Mi3 phone and reportedly sold 10,000 phones in 5 seconds. By 2017, Flipkart held a 51% share of mobile phone sales in the Indian market surpassing the 31% share of Amazon. As the company was growing it regularly raised money from private investors. Over a 10-year period, major private equity investors such as Tiger Global,…