This story is from November 12, 2015

Flipkart drops its plan to go app-only

Flipkart is not going completely app-only.
Flipkart drops its plan to go app-only
BENGALURU: Flipkart is not going completely app-only. It has reintroduced a mobile web option - something it had discontinued in March.
The new mobile web application, however, is an extremely light version, and provides an app-like experience. Called Flipkart Lite, it is designed for those who do not want to install apps - for reasons like low storage capacity on the phone - and to allow customers to use Flipkart straight from links on other websites and social media.

"Websites push users to install the app. But only 4% of the people actually install the app. Flipkart doesn't have a mobile website. So we wanted to give the experience of a native application on a mobile website," said Peeyush Ranjan, head of engineering at Flipkart.
Flipkart worked with Chrome and Opera to build this first-of-its-kind site, and plans to do the same with Firefox. "We gave Chrome a list of functionalities, which if they supported, could help us create a web application that worked like a native application. Chrome was excited and worked with us for the past three months to enable this," Ranjan said.
Flipkart Lite does not require any dedicated disk storage space and customers can experience one-touch home screen icon installation (instead of using the browser icon, you can simply use the Flipkart icon). It uses significantly less wireless data than apps. Webpages are rendered at 60 frames per second to ensure smooth scrolling and animations. "It will get notifications, it will have access to your hardware and contacts to make use of innovative interactive features like image search, and it will have the ability to work offline. All the things which weren't possible in a mobile web before are now possible. This is the first time anybody has done this," said Ranjan.

Some 70% of Flipkart's traffic now comes from mobile. "The number of transactions we see on mobile is increasing. If somebody comes to us through a link, there is no reason why we shouldn't be able to give them an app-like experience," Ranjan said.
Flipkart subsidiary and fashion e-tailer Myntra went app-only in May, but there was some customer backlash initially. Flipkart, too, was contemplating a similar strategy, but it now looks to be rethinking that.
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