Andy Jassy of Amazon.com Inc., is taking over as chief executive officer this summer, and is doubling down in India as challenges rise to what could be the most important growth market for e-commerce. In one of the first appearances since his appointment, Jassy told Indian partners and customers that the American company would focus on ensuring that small and medium-sized businesses thrive when working with their platform. He announced a $250 million investment fund for startups working on new business ventures, as well as agricultural and healthcare solutions.
“Small and medium businesses are the engine and blood of economic life,” Jassy said in an online interview on Thursday, the day of the opening of its four-day local sellers event held this year. “We have a desire to speed up SMBs.” Jassy’s appearance, announced just hours before the event, is a sign of India’s importance for the US giant trying to impact the 1.3 billion-people market, as part of its global ambitions. In the first campaign of the event in New Delhi last year, Jeff Bezos was the star speaker.
Local vendors protesting Amazon’s expansion tactics have held a similar visual conference called “Asmbhav”, meaning it is impossible in Hindi. That removes the title of the Amazon event, called “Smbhav”, or possible. The organisers of the rival event on Thursday called for stricter regulation, and demanded that central agencies investigate foreign platforms, “to save the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of small retailers.” India’s central bank should investigate foreign exchange “violations by foreign ecommerce platforms,” the groups said in a statement.
Since being appointed as successor to founder Jeff Bezos in early February, the 53-year-old veteran of cloud services has said little about his plans to target Amazon in the next few years. While Amazon seems unstoppable in markets like the US, driven by online purchases and web services. In India, the company is facing challenges such as strong competition and competition from local small business owners. These events are being held as the Indian government prepares to review foreign investment laws in a way, that may affect global giants such as Amazon and Walmart Inc. online platforms, impressive deals selling specialty products such as smartphones and home electronics, as well as discounted merchandise.
Jassy said one of Amazon’s goals is to help India’s neighboring stores to be digitally integrated, and the company plans to bring 1 million such stores onto its platform by 2025. Jassy’s rise comes at a time of Amazon crisis. Its businesses have not benefited from the coronavirus epidemic, but the Seattle juggernaut is also facing an investigation into dishonesty and market challenges in countries around the world.
