Flipkart eyes 2.5x jump in smartphone sales in festive season

New Delhi: Confident of expanding its lead over the US-based rival Amazon, SoftBank-backed Flipkart expects a 2.5 times growth in smartphone sales in this festive season compared to last year, a company official said.

Flipkart, which claims to have 65 percent share in the online smartphone sales in the country, will offer a number of deals and discounts to woo customers during its five-day 'Big Billion Days' sale beginning September 20.

"We have been hovering around 2-2.5X of the sales volume of our rival but we expect this to be 4X during festive sales (month beginning around September 20). We are confident that one in two phones sold in the country online will be through Flipkart," Flipkart Head (Smartphones category) Ayyappan Rajagopal told PTI.

This year, the sales would be about 2.5 times the volume sold on its own platform last year, he added.

Rajagopal, however, declined to comment on specific sales numbers.

Flipkart, he said, is focussing on providing customers with an extensive selection across price points, coupled with multiple finance options.

He added that during the sale period, customers can buy smartphones starting at Rs 2,999 onwards and discounts up to 60 percent will be offered.

"There will be discounts on every smartphone ... We are ensuring that customers have a huge selection to choose from. Our selection will be three times that of our closest rival," he said.

Flipkart is locked in an intense battle with Amazon India for leadership in the burgeoning e-commerce market in India and the two are betting on mobile phones as one of the major growth drivers.

Mobile phones are one of the most popular items sold through e-commerce sites in India.

Over the last few years, a number of new handset companies, including the likes of HMD (Nokia), Xiaomi, Motorola and CoolPad have partnered players like Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal to enter the Indian market.