Myntra aims for $1 billion sales by 2016-17

Leading ecommerce fashion retailer Myntra on Thursday said it aims to clock a gross merchandise value (GMV) of $1 billion and turn profitable by end of financial year 2016-17.

"January has been the biggest month ever for Myntra. I am happy to share that we have achieved an annualised GMV of $800 million. We plan to build on the momentum in the first month to touch $1 billion GMV by FY 2016-17," said Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan.

For achieving the target, the Flipkart subsidiary is planning to cut discounts by three to four percent, slash the number of discounted products and also reduce its supply chain costs by two percent.

Myntra's senior vice president, finance, Prabhakar Sunder said 60 percent of the etailer's revenue in the next financial year would arrive from products sold at full price against the current level of 54 percent.

In the third quarter of 2015-16, discounts dropped by six percent and supply chain costs fell by five percent for it.

Myntra deployed three key strategies of focus on brand mix, better management of business processes and cost management through a series of rationalised measures to achieve a growth rate of 70 percent year-on-year in 2015.

"Online fashion consumers are largely brand seeking. Brands will grow and define future of fashion. We expect the branded fashion market to grow twice as fast as the overall fashion market in the next five years," said its ecommerce platform head Prasad Kompalli.

Myntra was hosting more than 2,000 brands by December 2015, 800 of which boarded the platform for retailing in 2015 itself.

Roadster, Puma, Nike, Vero Moda and United Colors of Benetton (UCB) emerged as the top brands for the year 2015, Narayanan said.

More than 30 international brands are listed on the etailer, some of which include Harley Davidson, Ferrari and Forever 21.

Brand choice for womens wear is significantly higher than men, Myntra offers 1,250 womenswear brands and 1,41,00 styles while mens wear brands stood at 419 by the end of last year.