BigBasket wholesale arm's revenue witnesses 2X growth in FY17

On the lines of consumer retail arm, the wholesale arm of e-grocer BigBasket has shown a remarkable turnover for FY17. The Bengaluru-based firm which raised a staggering $300 million Series E round in February has witnessed a turnover of Rs 1,176 crore in FY17.

The figure is slightly more than double from Rs 563 crore in the previous fiscal year.

For uninitiated, BigBasket has two operating entities. Supermarket Groceries sources products from companies and sells them to Innovative Retail, which in turn runs the consumer-facing portal and makes the last-mile delivery.

The Alibaba-backed firm's retail arm had reported revenue of Rs 1,090 crore in FY17, which was 107 per cent jump from Rs 527 crore in the previous fiscal. Meanwhile, losses increased to Rs 191 crore last fiscal, compared to Rs 103.4 crore in FY16.

In August last year, BigBasket got Indian government approval for foreign direct investment (FDI). With this, the firm can retail food products manufactured and produced in India.

Meanwhile, the online grocery has been gaining the lost momentum as BigBasket rival Grofers also raised $65 million Series E round and e-commerce majors Flipkart and Amazon also launched grocery verticals - Supermart and Amazon Pantry respectively.

Notably, Amazon also runs standalone app Amazon Now for grocery, however, it seems that company has been prioritising Pantry over Amazon Now.

Following the government approval for food retail license, Amazon had kicked-off food retail operations starting from Pune. It becomes the first overseas e-commerce company to stock and sell food items directly to consumers.

Importantly, Bigbasket and Grofers have got government approval to set up a food retail business.

Last month, Alibaba also hinted to integrate its portfolio companies such as BigBasket, Paytm and XpressBees to compete with e-commerce behemoths Flipkart and Amazon India.

Moreover, BigBasket is looking to tap the offline and subscription-based model soon. This will create more competition for the already established players in this space such as Mikbasket, Dailyninja, and Supr daily, among others.

The development was reported by ET.