New Delhi, Amazon.in arrived in India on June 5, 2013 and for world’s top billionaire Jeff Bezos, has transformed the way the country buys and sells.
Today, Amazon holds 30 per cent of the e-commerce market in India and has become the most-visited shopping site in the country.
“As we say here at Amazon, it’s still Day 1, and I’m energized and humbled by the opportunities ahead. Amazon.in is ‘India ki apni dukaan’,” said Bezos.
“From listening to music, playing bhajans, voice shopping, or even ordering a cab, Alexa can do everything. There are tens of thousands of third-party developers expanding Alexa’s capabilities for our India customers,” he wrote.
Customers from 100 per cent of serviceable pin codes in India have placed orders on Amazon. Hundreds of thousands of Indian businesses now sell on Amazon.in.
After cementing its position in the ecommerce space, Amazon has launched several products like Amazon Echo, Prime Video, Prime subscription, Kindle, Alexa-enabled third-party devices, Amazon Music and Amazon Pay in India.
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), Amazon Echo led the Indian smart speakers market with 59 per cent share in 2018, followed by Google Home with 39 per cent unit share.
In India, there are nearly eight third-party brands with 13 different devices that have Alexa built-in.
Developers can now start building Alexa skills for customers in India with the new Hindi voice model available in Alexa Skills Kit (ASK).
The Amazon Web Services (AWS) which is Amazon’s cloud-computing business accounted for $8.38 billion of revenue for the company in the second quarter (Q2) in 2019 — a 37 per cent growth — and India is right on top in embracing the AWS Cloud.
AWS has been investing in India for a long time now. Today, AWS Cloud is being used by several active customers for various applications, including website hosting, big data analytics, ML/AI, Internet of Things (IoT), mobile applications and run mission-critical business applications.
The AWS customers’ list includes HDFC Life, Ashok Leyland, Aditya Birla Finance, MakeMyTrip, redBus, L&T Infotech and several others.
“Over the last few years, we have brought an ever-expanding set of capabilities to our customers in India across industries — enterprises, governments and start-ups, Ed Lenta, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, AWS, told IANS recently.
AWS, that offers over 200 security compliances — more than any other Cloud provider — in May announced third availability zone in Mumbai Cloud region.
To expand further in the country, Amazon India has introduced the Packaging-Free Shipment programme in nine Indian cities, which reduces waste by shipping orders in their original packaging and combining multiple shipments in a reusable crate or a corrugate box.
Amazon has signed a lease with GMR Hyderabad Airport City to expand its largest Fulfilment Centre (FC) in India. The existing FC is spread across 400,000 square feet and will now be expanded by another 180,000 square feet.
In June, Amazon announced the launch of its largest delivery station in Telangana spread across more than 20,000 square feet. Amazon has three fulfilment centres in Hyderabad with more than 3.2 million cubic feet of storage space.
It also has two sorting centres in Hyderabad with 100,000 square feet of processing capacity. There are about 90 Amazon owned and Service Partner delivery stations in Telangana.
Amazon is hopeful that the Indian government would release a “stable predictable” e-commerce policy that would allow the retail behemoth keep investing and creating jobs in the country.
The Commerce Ministry is currently in the process of finalising the national e-commerce policy and multinational firms have raised concerns over certain provisions of the draft policy.
“Our engagement with the Indian government makes us optimistic about partnering and collaborating to seek a stable predicable policy that allow us to continue investing in our technology and infrastructure,” said Brian Olsavsky, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Amazon last week.
Amazon is going the whole hog on its India dream.
