India e-commerce – Unicorns and Donkeys Pt. V.

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Flipkart likely to buy Snapdeal. 

• The latest in a series of woes that has hit the Indian e-commerce market reinforces my view that in network based businesses, there really is only space for one player to do well.
• This time around it is Snapdeal which is cutting costs by laying of 800 people, cutting the salaries of its founders to zero and exploring the sale of its mobile wallet FreeCharge at a big discount to what it paid for it in 2015 ($400m).
• The founders of Snapdeal admit to spreading themselves too thin and not executing optimally, but I think that the real issue here is much more fundamental.
• Snapdeal and Flipkart like Alibaba and to a lesser degree Amazon are market places which bring together merchants and buyers in one easy to use location and from which they can take a small cut.
• In effect, they are network businesses just like Uber, Alibaba, AirBnB, Craigslist and so on and consequently, they are bound by the same rules.
• 18 months ago I proposed a rule of thumb that states: A company that relies on the network must have at least 60% market share or be at least double the size of its nearest rivals to begin really making profit (see here).
• This, in a nutshell, is the problem faced by both Flipkart and Snapdeal in India.
• Flipkart is bigger than Snapdeal and so it is in a slightly better position but it is not double the size of its nearest rival.
• Furthermore, both have to contend with Amazon which is determined not to make the same mess of India that it made in China when it went up against Alibaba and lost.
• Amazon is not the largest in India, but it has the backing of the mothership meaning that it can lose money for far longer than either of the other two.
• Flipkart has the best chance of reaching this hallowed status as it is the largest in India with around 35% of monthly active users but it will need to reach at least 50% before it is double the size of Amazon (7Park Data).
• This is why I think it could end up acquiring Snapdeal, because adding Snapdeal’s users to its own would get it pretty close to achieving that milestone.
• Without this combination, we are likely to be left with 2 unprofitable donkeys that are slowly ground out of existence by the vastly more powerful foreign player.
• This uncertainty keeps me from recommending investments in either of the Indian e-commerce companies even at the discounts now being offered but if I had to go for one, it would be Flipkart.