Snapdeal acquires mobile commerce platform FreeCharge

Online marketplace, Snapdeal has announced that it has acquired FreeCharge, the mobile transactions platform.
“This is one of the biggest acquisitions in the history of the internet industry in India and sets up Snapdeal to build the most impactful digital commerce ecosystem in India,” said the official release.

FreeCharge is a mobile commerce platform where users can pay their mobile, DTH and utility payments across most major operators. Every day 75 million mobile recharges are done in India by a section of India’s 800 million mobile phone subscribers, out of which currently only 3 million recharges are done online.

Sanpdeal release said that with this acquisition, Snapdeal becomes the largest mobile commerce company in India offering the widest range of products and services, including financial services, mobile recharge and utility payments with an exponentially growing user base of over 40 million.

Kunal Bahl, Co-Founder & CEO, Snapdeal, said, “At Snapdeal we are building an ecosystem that power billions of digital commerce transactions in the country in the coming years. With this game-changing partnership with FreeCharge, we have significantly enhanced our user base and now offer all our customers access to the widest selection of products and services online, making digital commerce an even more intrinsic part of their lives. We are thrilled to have the very talented and supercharged team of FreeCharge, under Kunal (Shah)’s leadership, working as one family, towards creating life changing experiences for buyers and sellers in our country.”

Speaking about the announcement, Kunal Shah, Co-Founder & CEO, FreeCharge, said, “FreeCharge is at the forefront of the mobile commerce revolution which is taking place in India right now. We have been ahead of the curve and as a result, 85 per cent of our transactions originate from mobile, these transactions have very high repeat customer behaviour.”

“The partnership with Snapdeal comes at the right time, I foresee this as an opportunity to accelerate our road map in India and reach out to millions of users across the country. As a brand, Snapdeal has a massive recall and we are very excited to be a part of the team that is creating the biggest digital ecosystem of the country. FreeCharge’s success was enabled by a team of 200 extremely talented professionals and I would like to extend a special thanks to Alok Goel, Sandeep Tandon and a wonderfully supportive investor base,” added Shah.