Flipkart.com acquires weRead.com

Flipkart.com, a Bengaluru based e-commerce company which sells books, mobile phones, games and music DVDs/CDs online, has acquired the social network based book discovery, recommendation and review site, weRead.com. weRead.com was owned by Lulu.com, an open book publishing platform which allows its users to create their own books, distribute and sell them online. The company has not disclosed the valuation and deal size.

weRead.com has more than three million users and has added 60 million books and 2.5 million reviews in two years. The e-commerce firm believes that the weRead acquisition will allow Flipkart to leverage the advanced recommendation technologies and social graph information to enhance customer experience.

In an official communiqué, Sachin Bansal, chief executive officer, Flipkart.com, says, "Acquiring weRead will take our relationship with our customers to a wider plane, where we will be their partner in the entire book reading experience - right from purchase to referrals.

"This will enable us to suggest the most relevant books to our readers, based on their previous purchase patterns as well as the kind of books they and their friends like."

He adds, "At Flipkart.com, our growth till now has been organic in nature. However, to deliver the best in class service to our customers, we have started looking at acquisitions that will complement our current service offerings. weRead.com is one such step in this direction."

The company plans to retain the 'weRead' brand after the purchase.

It is estimated that less than 1 per cent of books are sold in India through the online medium.