In its first month of operations since launching the app, Tata Neu has clocked gross sales in the range $120-$150 million, sources said.
This is less than the internal target of hitting $200 million in gross merchandise (GMV) value per month, the people added.
ET reported in April that the Tata group’s top brass including Tata Sons executive chairman N Chandrasekaran, and Tata Digital president Mukesh Bansal had discussions with their top lieutenants on smoothening the shopping experience on the app after it was launched following multiple delays.
“They (Tata Neu) are aiming for around $200 million gross sales per month even as the first month they couldn’t hit the target. But it is expected to accelerate from here on,” a person aware of the matter said.
Another person said Tata Neu will aggressively ramp up in time for the Diwali festive season sale, as it is a crucial time for e-tailers in generating a significant chunk of their annual sales.
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Dominant ecommerce firms, Walmart-owned Flipkart and Amazon India, hold their flagship sale events in the run up to Diwali with many deals and incentives. This will be the first major festive season sale for the ecommerce wing of the Mumbai-based conglomerate.
Tata Digital has been promoting the new app heavily throughout the IPL where Tata group was the title sponsor this year.
ETtechAccording to data sourced from App Annie, Tata Neu was downloaded more than 11 million times in April and May across iOS app store and Google’s Play Store.
In a post-launch briefing of Tata Neu, the company said its app had been downloaded by 2.2 million users within a week of launch.
“It is a good start but considering the size and scale of the market I would have liked to see 40-50 million downloads. That could have been considered a much more successful number,” said Ashutosh Sharma, director of market research firm Forrester.
The company has a loyalty program called Neu Pass, and customers can earn Neu Coins after making purchases on the super app that they can redeem to purchase more items.
“They definitely tried to use a lot of growth hack that others have done in the past – like exclusive and invite-only access, IPL promotions – they spent quite a lot. The issue that Neu ran into was that even the promotion they were running was very confusing and not everyone would have understood the concept,” said Sharma.
Tata Digital did not respond to ET’s email till press time Tuesday.
Tata Neu houses the Tata conglomerate’s top consumer names such as BigBasket, 1mg and Croma, which are its biggest digital properties.
Besides the existing brands on its super app, the Tatas had announced plans to bring in other platforms such as Vistara, Air India,
, Tanishq, and to Tata Neu soon.
Chandrasekaran had also said that Tata Neu will onboard brands outside the Tata Group in future.
Bansal’s Cultfit, where Tata Digital made a minority investment in 2021, is now available on Tata Neu.
For Tata Digital to hit certain GMV milestones, BigBasket would play a crucial role as it clocked over $1 billion in gross sales last financial year.
The Tatas have also entered the ecommerce universe at a time when another conglomerate
is scaling up with JioMart and Retail-led investments like Dunzo and others.
JioMart has started testing a 90-minute express delivery service in Navi Mumbai as well.
Tata Digital CEO Pratik Pal said on May 29 that the company had big plans surrounding financial services like insurance and investments.
ET reported on April 6 that the
Tatas were looking to expand Neu’s offering, which includes building a full-fledged online travel agency business, similar to MakeMyTrip, for which they would open the platform to non-Tata airlines as well. The Tatas own three airlines – AirAsia, Vistara and Air India.
