Amazon infuses Rs 2,310 crore in India unit amid the Covid-19 pandemic

Amazon, the world’s biggest online retailer, has stepped up its investment in India and pumped in Rs 2,310 crore into its marketplace. The investment was made into Amazon Seller Services (Amazon.in), which runs a marketplace that assists sellers to sell their products online. The investment comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the demand for e-commerce services in the country. The new funding is coming through Amazon Corporate Holdings Private Limited, Singapore and Amazon .com Inc Limited, Mauritius in exchange for 231 crore equity shares, according to the financial data accessed by business intelligence platform, Tofler.

The investment follows a cash infusion of  Rs 2,208 crore in Amazon Seller Services and Rs 355 crore in Amazon Data Services India in February this year.

Early this year during India visit of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, the company said it planned to create 1 million jobs in India by 2025 through continued investments in technology, infrastructure, and its logistics network. These will be in addition to the 700,000 jobs Amazon’s investments have enabled over the past six years in India. Amazon has so far committed $6.5 billion to the India market, including $1 billion announced by Bezos in January this year, to tap the e-commerce market in the country.

According to data analytics firm GlobalData, Covid-19 pandemic will accelerate the growth of India’s e-commerce market taking it to about Rs 700,000 crore by 2023. Experts said consumers are getting a majority of their essential and non-essential supplies home delivered via e-commerce platforms to minimise exposure to others and for convenience. They said Amazon's e-commerce transactions are exceeding the pre-Covid-19 daily sales volume, ever since the lockdown was opened.

Amazon has over 600,000 sellers on its India marketplace. It is seeing an increase in new seller registrations versus pre-Covid-19. The firm is also seeing new sellers emerging from previously untapped geographies like Darbhanga in Bihar, Barmer in Rajasthan and Mahoba in Uttar Pradesh. The other places include Hailakandi in Assam and Bardhaman in West Bengal.

Amazon’s rival Flipkart has also enabled more than 90 per cent of its sellers to resume business on the platform since April. The Walmart-owned firm said it had seen a 125 per cent increase in new sellers signing up on the platform, in comparison to its existing seller base, for April-June.