Flipkart says it has hit annual revenue run rate of $1B in GMV

India's largest consumer e-commerce company Flipkart.com has announced that it hit $1 billion revenue run rate in GMV (gross merchandise value), one year before its target.

"In March 2011, we had announced that by 2015 we wanted to hit $1 billion in GMV. At that point in time, our run rate was $10 million. Today, we are really proud to announce that we have hit a run rate of $1 billion GMV one year before our target," Flipkart's co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal said in a joint statement.

Revenue run rate is the projected revenues based on sales in a month. The statement, in effect, means Flipkart sold products worth around $83 million or around Rs 500 crore last month. In comparison, India's largest retailer Reliance Retail reported sales of close to Rs 4,000 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2013.

For Flipkart, the new milestone marks a big jump compared with sales recorded last year. As reported by Techcircle.in, the total income or GMV of Flipkart grew 178 per cent or more than 2.7x to Rs 1,345 crore for the year ended March 31, 2013, against around Rs 484 crore the previous year.

In April last year, the firm had launched its marketplace and integrated it with its existing e-commerce platform to enable third-party sellers to list and sell their products on its website and sell directly to consumers. This appears to have boosted overall value of sales transaction on Flipkart.com.

Although the firm has not shared details, last month's launch of Moto G, new smartphone which was competitively priced and available exclusively on Flipkart, seems to have provided it a leg up.

Last October, Flipkart raised an additional $160 million (Rs 990 crore) in the fifth round of funding started in July last year, from new investors, including Belgium-based Sofina, US-based Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Dragoneer Investment Group and Vulcan Capital (founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen), along with participation from existing investor Tiger Global.

Flipkart Pvt Ltd, a Singapore-based holding firm, had previously raised $200 million from existing investors Naspers Group, Accel Partners, ICONIQ Capital, and Tiger Global in the first tranche of the group's fifth round of external funding. This was just five months ago and with the second phase, the total capital raised from the fifth round reached $360 million, which is the single-largest amount to be raised by any Indian internet business ever and valued the firm at $1.6 billion.

This fresh funding took the total funding for Flipkart so far to over $540 million and came 18 months after it had raised what was reportedly a $150 million Series D round led by the Johannesburg-based Naspers in a deal which valued it at $1 billion. Flipkart had previously raised three rounds of institutional funding from Tiger Global and Accel Partners besides angel funding.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)