Club Factory claims to be 3rd largest shopping app in terms of MAU on Android in India

Chinese e-tailer Club Factory on Wednesday claimed to have become the third largest shopping app, replacing Snapdeal, in terms of monthly active users on Android platform in India.

E-commerce majors Amazon and Flipkart stand at the first and second position, respectively, according to data analytics platform App Annie.

Snapdeal has contested the claim of losing the number three slot to Club Factory, saying its monthly active users (MAU) is nearly seven times than that of the Chinese firm.

"Club Factory has surpassed Snapdeal to become the third largest shopping app, in terms of MAU, in India since June 2019 after retaining rank one in Google Play Shopping App category, according to data analytics platform App Annie," Club Factory said in a statement.

Snapdeal has called it 'just hyperbole, with no connect to relevant business parameters'.

"Given that the traffic on the m-site and website is very substantial in India, app usage or downloads are an inadequate reflection of business. Snapdeal's monthly traffic is more than 10 times that of Club Factory and its monthly active users (MAUs) nearly 7 times that of Club Factory. This is public information based on credible third-party tools like Similar Web," Snapdeal spokesperson said.

Users end up at the mobile site, website or app - depending on the device being used by the consumer at that point and paid app installs are in no way a proxy for size or momentum in the business, as it is a highly game-able metric, Snapdeal said.

The company said that the Club Factory's total claimed traffic is itself a fraction of Snapdeal's monthly active users of 70 million. Club Factory's MAUs are obviously a still smaller fraction given each active user makes multiple visits in a month.

"If MAUs or traffic are to be seen as a business metric, then it should be across all channels and over a larger period. The measure of high-quality growth is more traffic, users and conversions. Simply boosting app downloads in a certain time frame through cashbacks or the use of click farms to cause a short-lived spike is not a reflection of either growth or business progress," Snapdeal said.

On Tuesday, Club Factory had said it is ramping up investments to meet higher consumer demands.

"After witnessing a rapid growth and success in India, we are now looking forward to an era of FAC (Flipkart, Amazon, Club Factory) to be the future of India e-commerce market. We are further empowering local SMEs (small and medium enterprises) in India with our zero per cent commission strategy and also making significant investment in the ecosystem to meet higher consumer demands," Club Factory founder and CEO Vincent Lou had said.