Flipkart claims lead over Amazon in smartphones

Flipkart has kept its lead over Amazon India on smartphone sales, even as both platforms claimed more than doubling of sales in the category on the second day of festive sales. Flipkart claimed to have sold 1.3 million smartphones in the first 20 hours, double the number of orders as compared to the same period last year.

Flipkart had seen overall sales of Rs 1,400 crore in a single day last year during the smartphone sales day. The company did not disclose gross sales number. Flipkart also claimed an overall market share of 65% of online sales, and 75% in smartphone category since the start of its flagship Big Billion Day event on Wednesday. Amazon claimed a higher growth in sales in the smartphone category.

"We have already seen a 100% increase over previous Diwali, even before the end of Day One. For smartphones, we saw an even larger gain, that grew 150% over 2016," said an Amazon spokesperson.

Analysts tracking the sales are saying that gross merchandise value (GMV) on Thursday could have crossed Rs 2,500 crore. "Overall, on Day 1 of sales on Wednesday, the industry saw a GMV of Rs 1,000 crore," said Anil Kumar, CEO, RedSeer.

Among the best selling phones on Flipkart were iPhones and Redmi Flipkart were iPhones and Redmi Note 4 as well as Samsung S7 and S8, Flipkart's Smrithi Ravichandran said. Amazon did not respond to specific queries till the time of going to print.
Amazon kicked off its Great Indian Festival for all customers on Thursday, after giving an early access to Prime customers for 12 hours on Wednesday, in which it saw large appliances emerging as the biggest category.
Industry experts said both platforms changed prices on some products to match deals that did well on rival platform, especially on products like MacBook Air and iPhones. The trend during day two on cashback website CashKaro was that top players Flipkart and Amazon India were neck-toneck on their smartphone sale war, because of price-matching.

"When Flipkart started their sale at midnight, they had very good pricing on iPhone, which Amazon matched within the night," said Swati Bhargava, cofounder, CashKaro. "Alternatively, MacBook Air price was lower on Amazon, which was matched by Flipkart."

However, Paytm Mall, the third player in the ecommerce sales war, claimed to have the lowest prices across platforms. The company received smartphone orders from customers across 700 cities and town within 24 hours, with iPhones and Samsung Galaxy J3 Pro emerging as the top-selling smartphones, registering 12x surge in order volume over regular days. 

Xiaomi is giving away smartphones for Re 1 to celebrate it's two-year anniversary in July

The company is hosting special flash sales between July 20 to 22, with amazing offers and disscounts up for grabs.

To commemorate it’s two-year anniversary in India, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is hosting a festival celebration This month. From July 20 to 22, the company will offering some crazy flash sale deals, slashed prices, as well as completely new items.

The biggest event of the festival are the special flash sales on all three days. Fans will be able to purchase Xiaomi devices for just Rs 1. July 20 will see the Mi5 and the 20000mAh Mi power bank on sale, July 21 will have the Redmi Note 3 and Mi Band, and July 22 will host the Mi Max and Mi Bluetooth Speaker. All you have to do to participate is share the post on Facebook by July 19, and then be ready on the Xiaomi website at 2pm. Be sure to keep your adrenaline running high, because only a very limited number of devices are up for grabs.


In addition, Xiaomi is also adding some new items to the roster, at 10am from July 20 to 22. The 10000mAh Mi Power Bank for Rs 1,299, Mi Capsule Headphones for Rs 999, and Mi In-Ear Headphones Pro Gold for Rs 1,799 will all make an appearance. You can also catch some special offers on other devices, exclusively on the Xiaomi app. The Mi 5 Gold will be available with free Mi In-Ear Headphones Pro Gold for Rs 24,999, the Mi Max with a phone case for Rs 15,248, Redmi Note 3 with a phone case for Rs 10,198, Mi 4i with Mi USB Cable and Mi USB Fan for Rs 11,999, and more will be available.

Xiaomi is also offering up free smartphones for people that play the match game on its website, so make sure you give it a whirl; you might end up being a lucky contestant.

Google could be building its own smartphones and smartwatches

After a first PC (Chromebook Pixel) and a tablet (Pixel C), Google reportedly has its own smartphones and smartwatches in the pipeline, optimised for use with the web-search giant’s mobile operating systems.

The Telegraph reports that Google could be gearing up to release its own smartphone by the end of 2016. Until now, Google has relied on its Nexus devices — manufactured in collaboration with various tech firms — as a means of releasing products that get the best out of the latest version of Android.

Now, the firm apparently wants to go it alone with handsets manufactured in-house and under its own name, optimised for use with its mobile OS — starting with Android Nougat, due Autumn 2016. That said, two new Nexus devices built by HTC are also scheduled to land in autumn 2016.

Modular mobiles use interchangeable “blocks” to boost performances or replace faulty parts. The smartphone could come with six modules (extra screen, camera, memory, speaker, etc.), with the main display, processor and RAM all housed in the phone’s unmodifiable main block. A developers’ kit is due out in the autumn before commercial release expected in 2017.

A pair of smartwatches in the pipeline

According to the specialist website, Android Police, Google may also be working on two watches featuring Google Assistant, an even more intelligent version of Google Now. These would be optimised to run Google’s wearables operating system, Android Wear 2.0.
Google is reportedly working on two models — one relatively basic, low-cost watch, and a more high-tech model with more features (4G, GPS, heart-rate monitor, etc.) and boosted battery life. These are said to go by the codenames Swordfish and Angelfish.
These products — if they really exist — could be unveiled at a specially dedicated event in the autumn.