'M-commerce to constitute more than 25% of e-commerce traffic'

"In the next three years mobile commerce will constitute more than 25 per cent of the total traffic in e-retailing," HomeShop18 CEO and founder Sundeep Malhotra said.

Elaborating his statement, he added India has about 800 million mobile connections and is growing at 25 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y).

"It is the second most mobile-populated country globally. I understand there are about some 60-70 million smartphones and they are growing at around 150 per cent y-o-y and why because their prices have come down," Malhotra noted.

According to a report by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB, India is expected to have close to 165 million mobile Internet users by March 2014, up from 87.1 million in December 2012 as more people are accessing the web through mobile devices and dongles.

Besides, independent experts pegged e-commerce segment to have doubled to about USD 14 billion in 2012 from USD 6.3 billion in 2011, fuelling more investments from e-commerce firms to step up their presence in this segment.

Experts estimate that e-commerce companies in India raised over USD 500 million (about Rs 2,743.3 crore) in 2012.

Malhotra said HomeShop18 is prepared to serve the rising demand for m-commerce in the country.

"In the last one year a lot of people have started using smartphones to search. These categories are now limited like google search for

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