While battling with Walmart Inc. in its largest overseas market, Amazon.com Inc. provided a rare glimpse into the Covid-era growth of its Indian sector.
Since it began operating in the Asian nation about a decade ago, the US online giant has facilitated exports of Indian-made products worth $3 billion and generated over a million local jobs, with about $1 billion and 300,000 jobs created since January 2020 alone. Since then, Amazon.in has added over 250,000 new sellers, as well as more than 50,000 offline retailers and community shops, according to Amit Agarwal, the company’s country president.
The figures show how fast Indian online retail grew after the pandemic intensified buying and selling in areas, other than smartphones and apparel. However, Amazon must compete in India with Walmart’s Flipkart and Reliance Industries Ltd., a domestic rival. India has become an increasingly significant growth market since Amazon’s exit from China around a decade ago. American companies are also facing tighter controls, antitrust criticism, and allegations that they have pushed out local competitors.
In the five years to 2025, Amazon India CEO Amit Agarwal said the Seattle company is on track to meet commitments made when founder Jeff Bezos visited the country in January 2020: to digitally empower 10 million companies, handle $10 billion in e-commerce exports, and build 1 million new jobs in India.
“Covid-19 has made companies realise they need to be more resilient, robust because there is no longer a notion of just offline or just online,” Amazon India CEO Amit Agarwal said in a phone interview on Thursday. “Like energy, everybody can use the internet,” he said.
India, a booming market for not only online products, but also video content and gadgets, has become the focal point of Bezos’ global ambitions. According to Morgan Stanley, the country will produce $200 billion in e-commerce revenue by 2026, making it one of the last major consumer markets still up for grabs.
It’s also a wellspring of talent. Amazon has recruited locally in fields such as machine learning and software development, while staffing its massive distribution centres with an army. It also makes money by assisting over 70,000 Indian exporters, in selling everything from toys to bed linens to jewellery and tea to 300 million customers in 200 countries.
Reliance and Flipkart, which is rumoured to be planning an IPO in the fourth quarter, are following the same strategy, but Agarwal believes that the Indian e-commerce is still in its infancy and can help many major players.
“Amazon would concentrate on local execution while adhering to evolving local regulations”, Agarwal added. As a backlash against the US and Chinese internet giants rises, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Information Technology have been considering a slew of new laws and regulations to protect customer data and eliminate anticompetitive practises. Amazon is compliant, according to Agarwal, but a stable regulatory framework is critical to attracting more investment to India, particularly at this period of global uncertainty.
“We welcome inspection; our role is to concentrate on the consumer, and India is a long-term investment for Amazon,” stated Agarwal. He said that now is not the time for changes. “Changes are disruptive, and any rule changes necessitate our compliance and adaptation., Agarwal commented.
