Meesho becomes fastest shopping app to cross 500 million downloads
What's the story
Indian e-commerce start-up Meesho has achieved a significant milestone in downloads. The shopping app now has over 500 million combined downloads across Google Play and iOS App Store.
According to mobile data analytics provider data.ai, Meesho is the world's fastest shopping app to achieve this.
It was founded in 2015 by Vidit Aatrey and Sanjeev Barnwal.
Context
Why does this story matter?
India has a crowded e-commerce space. At the top, there is Amazon and Flipkart, and then there are companies like Meesho.
Despite the difference in size, Meesho has managed to carve a space out for itself. The platform had 120 million monthly active users in 2022.
It is not that small compared to Amazon's 295 million and Flipkart's 167 million monthly visitors.
Downloads
Meesho was downloaded 274 million times in 2022
Meesho has managed to cross the 500 million downloads mark in six years. More than half of those downloads (274 million) came in 2022.
Per data.ai, Meesho's Android app's size (13.6MB) makes it the lightest e-commerce app in India on Google Play Store. This means it does not have any compatibility issues with low-end smartphones.
Information
The milestone is a validation of user-first mantra: Meesho
"This milestone is a great validation of our User-First mantra, which helps us continuously spot and address customer pain points to deliver an immaculate online shopping experience," said Meesho's CXO for user growth, Megha Agarwal.
Valuation
Fidelity cut Meesho's valuation by around 10%
Meesho has reached the milestone in downloads amid a recent setback in valuation. Fidelity, which co-led the company's Series F funding round, cut its valuation by around 10%.
The investment firm valued the e-commerce platform at $4.4 billion. In the $570 million Series F round, Meesho was valued at $4.9 billion.
Fidelity reduced the value of its stake from $2.59 million to $2.34 million.
Struggles
Meesho is trying to cut costs amid funding crunch
Like other Indian start-ups, Meesho is also struggling with the ongoing funding crunch. The company laid off 15% of its workforce, or 251 employees, in May to cut costs.
In FY22, the e-commerce platform saw its losses rise to Rs. 3,248 crore, up by 550%.
Its expenses also increased by 394% to Rs. 6,607 crore.