Smartphone sales pick up on Amazon while Flipkart loses market share ahead of competitive festive season

Smartphone sales are the most profitable product category for ecommerce web sites, and the competition for owning a larger portion of the market is intense. According to Coutnerpoint Research and reported by the Times of India, Flipkart saw a quarter on quarter decrease in market share, while Amazon saw an increase. The market share for Flipkart decreased to 50 percent in Q2 2017, from 57 percent in Q1 2017. Amazon saw an increase to 33 percent in Q2 2017, from a market share of 27 percent in Q1 2017.

Flipkart has disputed the figures, claiming that their market share has actually increased to 67 percent in Q2 2017, from 60 percent in Q1 2017. Ecommerce sites such as Amazon and Flipkart are trying to reduce their reliance on this single product category, but smartphones continue make up a significant portion of their overall sales. The news comes just ahead of the highly contested holiday season, which sees a yearly spike in smartphone sales.Going ahead into the holiday season, Flipkart looks to increase its lead over Amazon when it comes to smartphone sales. According to Flipkart, smartphone sales on their website has been around two to two and half times that of Amazon, which it hopes to increase to four times over the course of the holiday season. Flipkart also expects the volume of smartphones sold on its platform to increase by about two and a half times during the holiday season. Amazon has also indicated that it is poised to exceed its previous sales volumes during the holiday season.