Jasper Infotech Pvt. Ltd., that owns online retail company Snapdeal, has reported burgeoning losses of over Rs 1,320 crore for the year ended March 31, 2015 as against Rs 264.6 crore in 2013-14. The higher losses were revealed by the media after it accessed the company’s filing with the Registrar of Companies. The company however, is unfazed by the five-fold loss growth and said that it was expected given their growth trajectory. Snapdeal has been aggressively ramping up operations, logistics and technology to close the gap with market leader, Flipkart, and keep Amazon, its closest rival, at bay.
“The losses are on expected lines,” a Snapdeal company official told Forbes India. “We have been making acquisitions and investments in technology, supply chain, logistics and people. We are building the business and this was expected.” The online marketplace has been on a growth overdrive last year and has made acquisitions like Wishpicker, a gifting recommendation firm (December 2014); Exclusively, a marketplace for luxury and premium products (February 2015) and RupeePower, a marketplace for financial services (March 2015). Snapdeal’s heavy duty acquisition of online recharge (for mobiles) company, FreeCharge for USD 400 million, came only in April 2015, followed by buyouts of MartMobi, an m-commerce startup; LetsGoMo Labs, a mobility solutions company; and Silicon Valley-based adtech platform Reduce Data.
“Most of the larger players would have invested heavily in operational excellence/ logistics and enhancing customer experience this year. These may be one-time expenses,” said Sreedhar Prasad, partner – e-Commerce, KPMG. The company, founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in 2010, also entered into a strategic partnership along with a minority stake at logistics firm, GoJavas in March last year.
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on Jan 21, 2016