Snapdeal to Double Engineering Staff to Tap Growing Mobile Commerce

Leading online retailer Snapdeal is increasing focus on mobile commerce, where it will be doubling its engineering staff count to 700 soon as it sees over 90 percent of business coming in through this platform over the next 3 years, its co-founder said on Thursday.

Accordingly, the company has shifted half of its 350 engineers from PC to mobile commerce following the massive jump in traffic on this platform till last year. It has also seen mobile commerce soaring to 60 percent this year from paltry 5 percent last year.

"Our mobile commerce grew just 5 percent last year but now we are witnessing a growth of 60 percent. We are hopeful of receiving 75 percent of our orders through mobile commerce within the next one year and 90 percent over next 3 years," Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl told PTI on the sidelines of the India Retail Forum in Mumbai.

(Also See: Alibaba Reportedly in Talks With Snapdeal to Enter Indian Market)

"We have plans to increase the number of our engineering staff to 700 within 6 months' time from the currently existing mark of 350," he added.

At present, 50,000 businesses are selling their products by using the Snapdeal platform. However, it is expected that around 10 lakh businesses will be using Snapdeal's marketplace over the next 3 years, Bahl said.