COVID 19: For e-commerce companies like Flipkart and 1MG (1MG), the demand for essential items such as oximeters and test kits has increased with increasing cases of COVID 19 infection in the country.
A Flipkart spokesperson said, “The sales of oximeters and test kits in metro cities have increased by 4.4 times and more than 12 times,” said a Flipkart spokesperson, without specifying the number of items sold.
Sales of 1mg testing kits increased five times
The recently sold 1MG to Tata Digital also said that there has been a five-fold increase in the sales of testing kits in the first week of January as compared to the last week of December. At the same time, sales of oximeters quadrupled during this period, while sales of thermometers and respiratory masks doubled.
People also buying immunity boosters and vitamin supplements
Apart from this, there has also been an increase in the demand for immunity boosters and vitamin supplements. Prateek Verma, Head, ePharmacy Tata 1mg said, “Demand is growing at the rate of 50 per cent on a weekly basis. Our sales have registered a growth of around 40-50 per cent in the last two weeks.”
“We have been able to fulfill most of the orders as the capacity was already developed. We have more labs as well as pharma capacity than the previous wave. Hope this helps.”
Self-testing kit sales increased by 500% in a week
On the other hand, Mylab Discovery Solutions, which makes self-testing kits CoviSelf, also said that Maharashtra, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are the leading states with high demand for their kits. According to the company’s MD and co-founder Hasmukh Rawal, there has been a 500 percent increase in the sales of the company’s self test kit CoviSelf in the last one week. The company claimed that CoviSelf can detect key variants of the coronavirus including Omicron.
Piramal sold a record 4 lakh kits
Even though the companies did not share the number of units sold across categories in an interaction with Moneycontrol, All India Organization of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD) general secretary Rajiv Singhal said that Piramal, which distributes the self-testing kits, had started selling it in early January. A record 4 lakh kits have been sold across the country in nine days. “Actually, the delay in getting the testing slots from the labs is the reason for this, but we also feel that people are buying them keeping the safety in mind too,” he said.
A Flipkart spokesperson said, “There has been an overall 1.6x growth in the demand for groceries in the same period.”
.