Flipkart gets back desktop: credit to new CEO and strategy

With co-founder Binny Bansal taking over as CEO from Sachin Bansal and due to Amazon gaining mind share because of its advances on the web in India,
Flipkart is once again emphasizing on the web, and the desktop.
From the past few months, India's largest e-commerce company had shifted its attention wholly to the mobile app. However its latest communications and advertisements - for its Republic Day sale - mention www.flipkart.com as prominently as the mobile app.
Incidentally, all Flipkart sales events starting from August last year, including the sales around Independence Day, Dussehra, Diwali, Christmas and New Year, were app-only. Just last month, at the annual brand conference of Myntra (Flipkart's fashion subsidiary), Sachin had said that the company was a firm believer in a mobile-only strategy. He also said that the e-commerce company would not be able to become an integral part of India's mobile revolution if employees at the firm still thought with a desktop mindset.
Flipkart on Wednesday shared a statement that they will continue to follow the 'mobile first' approach. While a great majority of company’s customers shop from their mobile devices, the firm also has a base of customers who use the desktop. This Republic Day sale will provide both mobile and desktop shoppers exciting offers on products across categories to shop from. The statement actually indicates an exit from the 'mobile only' strategy to a 'mobile first' strategy.Rival Amazon has benefited big time from Flipkart's focus on mobile. Over the past few months, the global e-commerce giant edged past Flipkart on the web in terms of traffic, while also bridging the gap between the two firms on mobile.
According to some media sources, Binny wasn't as enthusiastic about the mobile-only strategy as Sachin was. Reports have also said that most investors and senior management of the company did not want Flipkart to give competitors any chance to chip away at its leadership position.
Mobile platforms contribute to as much as 70% of all e-commerce transactions in India. Myntra became the first big e-commerce company in the world to shut its website - desktop and mobile - to go app-only. However, last month, Myntra brought back its mobile website. Flipkart had also shut its mobile website last year only to bring it back.
On Wednesday, Flipkart issued a release quoting internet traffic data firm SimilarWeb saying that the company is far ahead of rivals like Amazon and Snapdeal on mobile platforms. The data for December shows Flipkart rejoicing a 47% share of visits among the major shopping apps in India.
Myntra was in the second position with over 16% share of visits and the combined traffic share of Flipkart and Myntra stood at 63%. Amazon was in the third position with 16%, followed by Snapdeal with 14%.
Flipkart, valued at $15 billion, has more than 50 million registered users and sells over 30 million products.