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The conversation with Amazon India's country manager Amit Agarwal begins with him dismissing his rivals. Flipkart, India's largest e-commerce company, does everything Amazon does, and vice versa, I point out. There is little product differentiation. Agarwal snaps back. "They are a very low benchmark."Colleagues call Agarwal a "Type A" - a personality type that psychologists say are excessively competitive, aggressive, work-obsessed, success-oriented, proactive, and mostly workaholic. Not just Agarwal. Almost all leaders we come across in India's nascent but fast growing e-commerce industry fit that description. It is becoming a slugfest.According to a 2014 report by Morgan Stanley, three players have pulled ahead in the horizontal marketplace race. Flipkart leads with a 44 per cent share of the $6.3 billion Indian e-commerce market, by Gross Merchandise Value (GMV). Snapdeal is No.2 with 32 per cent share, while Amazon, a late starter in India - it launched in June 2013 - has 15 per cent. Amazon touched $1 billion in sales in 2014. For the company, India is the fastest-growing international market to reach that mark, in just one-and-a-half years. Amazon does not agree with the Morgan Stanley report on the difference in GMV share.And Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl insists the race between Flipkart and his company is much closer. The Morgan Stanley report was published in February, before Snapdeal bought FreeCharge, a mobile transactions company. "Today, if you add FreeCharge, which is a few hundred million dollars annually, it is really neck and neck," Bahl says. "Flipkart and Myntra had a five-year, $500-million, and 10,000-person head start on us. Today, it does not seem someone had a head start on us," he adds. Snapdeal started in 2010. By the time Amazon launched in mid-2013, Flipkart was already nearing an annual GMV of a billion dollars. Flipkart, meanwhile, thinks its first-mover advantage will hold good. "Flipkart as a brand has very high consumer interest. It is the most trusted online retail brand in the country," says Mukesh Bansal, the company's head of e-commerce. "We have deeper understanding of consumers. Between Flipkart and Myntra, it would be more than 50 per cent market share of all consumer transactions in India," he adds. Founders Sachin and Binny Bansal did not speak to BT for this article, but four company executives spoke on Flipkart's behalf.Meanwhile, revenue figures from Registrar of Companies (RoC) do show Flipkart remains in lead. Flipkart didn't have much competition in 2007 when it started. Its founders initially thought of a price comparison website - an aggregator of e-commerce sites. But they soon realised there were hardly any e-commerce sites in India. So they founded Flipkart and it quickly pulled away from older e-tailers such as Indiaplaza by innovating and offering many firsts - 24/7 customer support, cash on delivery, as well as a return policy.But those innovations are now commoditised. Every big player offers the same. All three also advertise aggressively on television and print to build their brand recall; they are battling to be the first to announce category launches, new services, and funding; competing for global talent while taking potshots at each other on social media.On February 20, a picture of a Flipkart office with two receptionists and an Amazon-branded package lying in one corner went viral on Twitter. "Even @Flipkart Orders from @Amazon!" the tweet read. Flipkart responded: "We recycled said packaging as our reception's dustbin." Twitteratis screamed for more blood. "Flipkart and Amazon, go get a knife you both, let's see who wins," a post said. Amazon India tweeted: "There is a bit of Amazon in every e-commerce company."The real knives in this battle are more dangerous than tweets. According to industry sources, Amazon India has data scientists whose job is to only execute strategic pricing that makes Flipkart bleed. Sellers on Amazon may have 2,000 refrigerators, for instance. It may offer deep discount on 300 of them. That will provoke Flipkart to discount further - and hence add up to its losses. "Amazon is using it out of design to maximise the bleeding at Flipkart. Today the game is about who has the stamina to last longer," says an industry veteran who does not want to be identified.All three are marketplaces and sellers on their platforms don't necessarily agree to price cuts the companies want; the trio indulge in 'gap funding'. They make up the difference by paying sellers and charging the cost to promotional expenses. While companies remain tightlipped, it is widely believed that Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon burn more than $100 million of cash every month. Flipkart has the highest cash burn rate but then it also raised the largest amount - some $2.3 billion so far. Snapdeal has raised close to $1 billion in 2014, while Amazon India is backed by a parent which has pledged $2 billion investment in the Indian marketplace. All will probably need even more money. To win market share, all three discount constantly and add to their already humungous losses. Flipkart, in 2013/14, ran losses of Rs 400 crore whereas Snapdeal lost Rs 265 crore, and Amazon Rs 321 crore. Some estimates say Flipkart and Snapdeal have roughly enough cash to last out a year and a half at current burn rates. And this war is unlikely to be settled within that time period.While all three appear largely similar to the average customers, there are subtle differences in offerings and business philosophies. "People don't go to Amazon for a crazy sale. But they do to Flipkart and Snapdeal. Amazon's philosophy is to offer a better product at everyday low price. But Flipkart and Snapdeal are seen as deep discounting sites," says Mahesh Murthy, Managing Partner at Seedfund, an early-stage venture capital company.Q&A: We'll get 100,000 sellers by December 2015: Flipkart's Ankit Nagori