Flipkart vs Snapdeal: The gloves Are Off

The gloves are off in the e-commerce war as KunalBahl, co-founder of Snapdeal, and Mukesh Bansal, chief executive at Flipkart, battle it out publicly in their bid to win GMV supremacy.

Coming before the crucial festive season, Snapdeal, which has been inching closer to Flipkart, is now gunning for pole position.Bahl has said Snapdeal at a $4 billion GMV (gross merchandise value) is on course to overtake its arch rival by March next year. Bansal rubbished his claim saying Flipkart will clock $10 billion in fiscal 2016 and no other online retailer would even be half its size by then.

GMV is the value of goods sold on a platform without factoring discounts and returns. Bahl and Bansal’s attack on each other is reminiscent of the cola wars between PepsiCo and Coca-Cola more than a decade ago, when claims and counter claims were made through the media.

E-commerce majors have raised billions of dollars in investor money and are under pressure to keep their frenetic growth intact. It’s been a tough year for fund raising for both Flipkart and Snapdeal with high stakes now resting on their Diwali sales.