Snapdeal GMV soars 301 percent in FY15

According to Japan’s SoftBank, India’s homegrown and largest marketplace Snapdeal witnessed a 301 percent rise in gross merchandise volume (GMV), or value of goods sold on the site, for the year ended March 2015. Industry sources say that the company’s annualised GMV touched around 2 billion dollars (over Rs 12,700 crores) in March.

As competition among ecommerce players intensifies, Snapdeal recently acquired several related companies including online recharge company Freecharge and luxury fashion portal Exclusively and aims to touch 8-10 billion dollars (over Rs 51,000 – Rs 63,900 crores) in GMV by March 2016. Snapdeal is currently in talks with Taiwan-based phone parts supplier Foxconn Technology Group and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding to raise around 500 million dollars (over Rs 3 lakh crore) at a valuation of 5 billion dollars (over Rs 30 lakh crores), according to media reports.

Snapdeal has also been focusing on strengthening its senior management team. It recently appointed Anand Chandrasekaran as its Chief Product Officer, Animesh Sharma as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Exclusively.com and brought former Coca-Cola India marketing director Idi Srinivas as Marketing Head. Amit Maheshwari, senior vice-president of the company’s fashion category will now lead its newly acquired luxury fashion portal Exclusively.com as Chief Executive Officer. The company is yet to decide on the successor of Maheshwari. Founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Snapdeal has raised over one billion dollars (over Rs 6,800 crores) so far from investors, including Japan’s SoftBank Group.