WS Retail Services Pvt Ltd, which used to be the only vendor on India’s largest e-commerce platform Flipkart.com before it turned into a marketplace last year, clocked sales worth Rs 3,135.2 crore (roughly $500 million) for year ended march 31, 2014, more than doubling its sales of Rs 1,345.6 crore in the previous year ended March 31, 2013. It also generated modest profit of Rs 67 lakh as against net profit of Rs 2 crore in the previous year.
WS Retail, which was legally separated from the Flipkart founders and its venture capital investors two years ago, is now owned by former IT professional and angel investor Rajiv Kuchhal and some employees of Flipkart.
However, it remains the key seller on the marketplace. It is not just the main vendor providing exclusive products on the site such as its runaway hit Moto brand of Motorola and Xiaomi branded smartphones but also the only vendor associated with its Amazon Prime-like membership service Flipkart First.
Flipkart had early this year said it hit an annual revenue run rate of $1 billion in February this year, which means it clocked sales worth over Rs 500 crore that month. Its previous milestone of doing sales worth Rs 100 crore happened in June 2012.
When contacted by Techcircle.in, Flipkart spokesperson replied: “We do not comment on revenue details of either Flipkart or any of our sellers.”
WS Retail generating sales worth over Rs 3,100 crore means Flipkart itself sold products worth much more; just how much more could not be ascertained.
Media reports had previously speculated that the firm generated over 80 per cent of revenues from WS Retail. This could mean Flipkart did as much as Rs 4,000 crore in total gross merchandise value (GMV), including the sales of other merchants.
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