Flipkart sells half a million mobile handsets in 10 hours

Flipkart claims to have sold half a million mobile handsets in the last 10 hours since sales of mobile phones opened on midnight of Wednesday, 14th October in the ‘The Big Billion Days’ sale. This sets a record for the highest number of mobile phones sold in India within a short period of 10 hours in any platform, either online or offline. The Big Billion Days also set the new benchmarks of 4G adoption in India as 75 percent of the phones sold during the ten hours period were 4G phones. While metros like Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai were the leading cities in terms of the sales, Flipkart also saw huge surge of interest from Tier 2 cities with Nagpur, Indore, Coimbatore, Vishakhapatnam and Jaipur leading in sales. The exchange offers put out by Flipkart also saw great customer interest as 25 percent of the buyers used this opportunity to upgrade to a new phone. Bank offers from YES bank, Standard Chartered and Citi Bank offered additional discounts and reportedly saw huge traction with 50 percent of customers availing of the bank offers, says Flipkart. Mukesh Bansal, Head of Commerce Platform, Flipkart said, “It has been a blockbuster beginning for our mobile category sale.  We are truly humbled by this overwhelming response from the people of India. With Big Billion Days, we have completely re-defined the online shopping space in India. Indian mobile revolution has truly come of age and the half a million mobile handsets sale record is truly a testament to the growing demand for smartphones in India.”