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Business News/ Companies / People/  We’re thinking in terms of decades for India: Amazon India’s Amit Agarwal
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We’re thinking in terms of decades for India: Amazon India’s Amit Agarwal

Amazon India's country manager speaks about the growing importance of India to Amazon and where the company is planning to deploy $2 billion

Agarwal says Amazon wants to be India’s most customer-centric company. Photo: Hemant Mishra/MintPremium
Agarwal says Amazon wants to be India’s most customer-centric company. Photo: Hemant Mishra/Mint

Bangalore: Amazon.com Inc. on Wednesday said it would invest $2 billion in India, raising the stakes in India’s fast-growing e-commerce market. Amazon’s founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said in a statement that the “response from customers and small- and medium-sized businesses in India has far surpassed our expectations" so far. In an interview, Amazon India’s country manager Amit Agarwal spoke about the growing importance of India to Amazon, where the company is planning to deploy the $2 billion, and the pace at which it is growing in India. Edited excerpts:

How important is India becoming to Amazon globally?

Right from day one, we’ve said that we have a very long-term outlook in India. We’re thinking in terms of decades. We want to be India’s most customer-centric company. India has always been an important part of our global mission and we have a very long-term outlook.

Is Jeff Bezos getting more involved in overseeing the India business?

He’s always been involved, not just in India but in all our strategic investments. The quotes from Jeff should be viewed as a very strong validation from him of the progress that we’ve seen in the last 12 months and a re-emphasis of the long-term outlook in India. The amount should be seen as a signal of our commitment to assume leadership position. So, nothing has changed. He’s always been very actively involved.

How fast is Amazon growing here?

India has been the fastest-ever ramp-up at Amazon. In just a year after launching, we have more than 8,500 sellers. We’ve built India’s largest online store overall, as well as in some individual categories such as books, toys, music, etc. We’ve built up our supply chain and a large number of our units are shipped using ‘Fulfilment by Amazon’. Our announcement and Jeff’s quotes, particularly, are a validation of the growth we’ve seen in India.

What is the $2 billion going to be used for and over how much time?

The investment would be in the three key pillars of our strategy that we’ve talked about. How do we expand and offer our customers more selection in existing categories and in new categories? This includes helping sellers come online, offering products to them such as ‘Fulfilment by Amazon’, and other capabilities so that it becomes easy for them to sell online.

The second is, how do we offer low prices to customers? We do that by constantly looking for ways to lower costs for sellers. The third pillar is the delivery experience—offering a fast and reliable delivery experience to our customers and other convenience such as mobile shopping. These are the pillars we have invested in and will continue to invest in.

There is speculation that Amazon may buy companies in India. What’s your view on this and are you actively looking at acquisitions?

We’re very happy with our organic strategy. I cannot speculate on what we may or may not do.

When did you decide to make such a large commitment? Does the announcement have anything to do with Flipkart’s $1 billion fund raise announcement on Tuesday?

Right from day one, we haven’t shied away from investing. Just on Monday, we announced five fulfilment centres. At this point in time, the number was big enough so we thought we should share it with our customers and our partners. I don’t know if Amazon’s rapid growth is triggering investments elsewhere. You will have to ask Flipkart that.

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Published: 30 Jul 2014, 11:54 PM IST
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