Tata CLiQ hasn't quite clicked in online retail

Kolkata: Tata Group's three-year-old e-commerce venture, Tata CLiQ, is yet to scale up the way foreign marketplaces have. Its revenue is only a fraction of that of rivals such as Walmart-owned Flipkart or Amazon.

However, the Tatas have managed to check the burnout rate by reducing the growth in net losses.

As per recent regulatory filings to the Registrar of Companies (RoC) accessed through business intelligence platform Veratech Intelligence, Tata Unistore Ltd (which owns and run Tata CLiQ) widened its net losses over 18% to Rs 246.75 crore in 2018-19 even though it more than doubled total income to Rs 110.75 crore. In FY18, Tata Unistore’s net loss was Rs 208.4 crore, which had grown 28% onyear, while total income was Rs 41.7 crore.

In contrast, the Flipkart Group’s total revenue in FY18 was Rs 30,164 crore, while Amazon India’s main unit, Amazon Seller Services, had notched up revenues worth Rs 5018 crore in the same period. Financials for FY19 for Amazon India and Flipkart are still not available.

When contacted, Tata Unistore’s media relation agency said the TataCLiQ spokesperson has declined to comment. Even funding by Tata group into its e-commerce business is a fraction of what Amazon and Walmart are pumping into their e-commerce marketplaces in India.