Flipkart: CEO Krishnamurthy Reminds Employees To ‘Continue Delivering’

Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy reminded his employees to “continue delivering” while announcing the ecommerce startup’s plan to include “gemstone” and “jewellery” as the focused categories for 2019.

Krishnamurthy was speaking at one of the town hall session organised on the ground floor of its new office premise in Bengaluru, which is spread across 8.3 Lakh Sq. Ft area, with three separate buildings, comprising 30 floors and a seating capacity of over 7.3K, altogether.

Post Walmart-Flipkart deal, Sachin Bansal has already said goodbye, while Binny Bansal is continuing as group CEO, and Kalyan Krishnamurthy as CEO. In what’s touted as ecommerce’s biggest deal, Walmart is pouring-in $16 Bn in Flipkart for a 77% stake at a valuation of$22 Bn.

While announcing Flipkart’s performance and its path for this year, Krishnamurthy said, “Let’s not get this to our heads and (let’s) continue delivering.” Furthermore, the focus for the year 2019 “includes gemstones and jewellery”.

Earlier, Krishnamurthy also expressed his interest to add ‘grocery’ in the list of categories. The ecommerce had piloted grocery services in Bengaluru in November last year but did not scale as expected.

“For this year, the next leg of growth is expected to come from grocery,” he added.

In FY 2017-18, the gross merchandise volume (GMV) of Flipkart was $7.5 Bn and net sales of $4.6 Bn, representing more than 50% growth year-over-year in both cases, according to numbers shared by Walmart. This has come on the back of growth in categories like fashion, mobile phones and large appliances.

Let’s Look At The Market Flipkart Is Now Banking Upon

Jewellery and Gemstone: India is one of the largest exporters of gems and jewellery. Countries like the UAE, the US, Russia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Latin America and China are the biggest importers of Indian jewellery. The country’s gems and jewellery exports stood at $ 24.89 Bn in April-December 2017. The market is home to more than 300K players. As of 2017, its market size was about $60 Bn and is expected to reach $100-110 Bn by 2021-2022. It contributes 29% to the global jewellery consumption, according to IBEF report.

Online Food and Grocery: The online F&G delivery market is estimated to be around $600 Mn in India and is pegged to touch $5 Bn by 2020 at a CAGR of 72%. India’s biggest online grocery BigBasket is said to be catering 20K daily orders in Bengaluru and 10K by Grofers per day.

However, with Walmart in the picture, Flipkart is certainly expected to rise in the two sectors it is banking upon.