The Indian government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) revealed on Wednesday, July 5th, that it has expanded its reach to five additional cities. The platform has officially gone live in Beta mode in Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.
After successfully increasing the density of sellers over the past few months, the ONDC platform has now gone live in these newly added cities. A recent statement revealed that the network currently boasts over 40,000 sellers, with more than 18,000 of them operating specifically within these five cities.
In April of the previous year, ONDC conducted a soft launch in Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Shillong, and Coimbatore. Following this, the platform was made available to the public in Bengaluru in September and subsequently entered the Beta phase in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, in December.
According to ONDC, the primary purpose of going Beta live is to provide consumers with their initial experience of the open network, gather real-time feedback, and conduct large-scale testing before the nationwide rollout.
T Koshy, MD and CEO of ONDC, said, “We hope that with this Beta announcement, more and more businesses will be inclined to join us, benefiting from an early-mover advantage. Additionally, as we touch more consumer territories, it also gives us the insights and opportunities to improve the network.”
Established in December 2021, ONDC is an initiative led by the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) with the aim of democratizing ecommerce within the country. Its mission is to facilitate wider adoption of retail ecommerce in India, fostering greater accessibility and penetration.
Since its launch in various Indian cities, ONDC has garnered considerable attention from private ecommerce players, logistics startups, payment platforms, banks, and other stakeholders within just one year of operation. Notably, startups such as PhonePe, Paytm, Delhivery, Dunzo, Shiprocket, and Snapdeal have recently integrated their services with ONDC, highlighting the growing interest and support for the platform.
The open platform is now accessible in more than 235 cities, providing a wide range of services in areas such as food, grocery, electronics, fashion, and mobility.
In the earlier part of this year, ONDC made its entry into the mobility sector by partnering with Namma Yatri, an auto booking platform based in Bengaluru, and integrating it into its network. Koshy, in a recent update, mentioned that the platform aims to expand into the financial products and services segment within a few months.
In May of this year, ONDC reported a significant increase in daily transactions. They experienced a surge from a mere 50 orders in January 2023 to 25,000 orders during the first week of May.
To facilitate the growth of the network, Google Cloud has recently introduced an accelerator program for ONDC. As part of this initiative, participants of the open platform will have the opportunity to receive a grant of up to $25,000, along with various other technological resources and facilities.