Bengaluru, Sep 27 (IANS): Led by mobiles, e-commerce platforms in India clocked over Rs 24,500 crore (nearly $3.5 billion) in the first four days of the festive sales that began from September 22, signalling a better-than-anticipated kickoff to the festive season this year, a report showed on Tuesday.

Nearly 55 million shoppers made online purchases during the first four days as overall daily average gross merchandise value (GMV) rose to 5.4 times, according to Redseer Strategy Consultant.

"We had earlier projected a GMV of $5.9 billion (over Rs 41,000 crore) for the first week of festive sales and as expected, we are on track to achieve this figure," said Sanjay Kothari, Associate Partner, Redseer Strategy Consultants.

Nearly 1,100 mobile phones were sold each minute, with a total of Rs 11,000 crore of mobiles sold on large e-commerce players.

In terms of units, 60-70 lakh mobiles were sold in the first four days (September 22-26).

Mobiles saw a 10 times growth in daily average GMV. Premium phones (iPhone 12, 13 and OnePlus) drove mobile sales.

"We are expecting a total sale of 90 lakh-1 crore units of mobile sales in the first festive week. We are also seeing premium phones driving mobile growth this year,a said Kothari.

Fashion saw a 4.5 times jump in terms of daily average GMV, to reach Rs 5,500 crore in the first four days, said the report.

The first wave of festive sales include Flipkart's 'Big Billion Day Sale', Amazon's 'Great Indian Festival', Meesho's 'Mega Blockbuster Sale', and sales on platforms like Myntra, Ajio and Nykaa, among others.

"First four days of festive sale this year is 1.3 times the first four days in previous year's festive sale," said the report.

E-commerce marketplaces usually hold up to three sales leading up to Diwali.