Snapdeal acquires FreeCharge
08 Apr 2015
In an attempt to become the largest mobile commerce company in India, India's largest online marketplace Snapdeal has acquired mobile transactions platform FreeCharge for an undisclosed sum.
''The age of monolithic ecommerce platforms is over; it is now time to build an impactful digital commerce ecosystem in India that is multidimensional and inclusive, delivering well defined experiences to consumers. At Snapdeal we are building an ecosystem that powers billions of digital commerce transactions in the country in the coming years,'' said Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO at Snapdeal.
''With this game-changing partnership with FreeCharge, we have significantly enhanced our user base and now offer all our customers access to the widest selection of products and services online, making digital commerce an even more intrinsic part of their lives,'' he added.
FreeCharge is a mobile commerce platform where users can pay their mobile, DTH and utility payments across most major operators.
Every day 75 million mobile recharges are done in India by a section of India's 800 million mobile phone subscribers, out of which currently only 3 million recharges are done online.
FreeCharge offers a convenient and efficient solution applicable to hundreds of millions of consumers for paying utility bills, and especially doing mobile recharges, which often ends up being the first e-commerce transaction that a consumer does online given the ticket size, convenience and instant gratification.
With this acquisition, Snapdeal becomes the largest mobile commerce company in India offering the widest range of products and services, including financial services, mobile recharge and utility payments with an exponentially growing user base of over 40 million, the company said in a statement.
''We have been ahead of the curve and as a result, 85 per cent of our transactions originate from mobile, these transactions have very high repeat customer behavior. The partnership with Snapdeal comes at the right time, I foresee this as an opportunity to accelerate our road map in India and reach out to millions of users across the country,'' said, Kunal Shah, Co-Founder & CEO of FreeCharge.
FreeCharge will continue to function as an independent platform, it added.