Amazon has also crossed over 100 million subscribers for its Prime service globally, shipping 5 billion items to Prime subscribers in 2017.
BENGALURU: Amazon is the fastest growing marketplace in India, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of the US-based e-tailer, said in his annual letter to shareholders. The 54-yearold, who has allocated a total $5 billion of investments to India, said the internet behemoth was the most visited site on both desktop and on mobile along with being the highest downloaded shopping app in India in 2017. These annual letters, which Bezos has been writing to Amazon’s shareholders since 1997, give insights into his management thinking along with providing an overview of how the business performed in the previous year. For instance, his latest letter said that customers are “divinely discontent”, which pushes Amazon to keep improving its overall shopping experience. Amazon, which has been fighting the local e-commerce major Flipkart, has seen Bezos be very vocal about his aggressive ambitions for the Indian market after having lost in China. India’s mention in the shareholder letter again reiterates the significance he attaches to the country. Over the past 12-18 months, Amazon’s battle with Flipkart has further intensified and the company has already spent $3 billion here in India. This, however, is not the first time the Indian market has found a mention in Bezos’s famed annual letters to shareholders. In 2015, he had mentioned how multiple local programmes for sellers had helped Amazon adapt to local needs and expand into this market. “India is another example of how we globalise an offering like marketplace through customer obsession and a passion for invention,” he had noted. For the first time, Bezos disclosed the size of Amazon’s Prime membership base. “13 years post-launch, we have exceeded 100 million paid Prime members globally,” he wrote. Prime service added more members in India in its first year than any previous geography in Amazon’s history. Amazon, over the last two years, has been bringing its top global products to India including Prime, Echo, and Amazon Music, among others. Most recently, it has been pushing its wholesale business here along with allowing Indian merchants to sell in as many as eleven global markets. This frenetic pace of expansion has come at a cost. As reported earlier, the international business for Amazon incurred a loss of close to $3 billion in 2017 —largely attributed to its India spends. Despite that Amazon has repeatedly said it is going to keep making investments here. Most recently, Amazon has engaged with Flipkart for an investment in the Bengaluru-based company even though Walmart is said to be in advanced stages of talks to pick up a majority stake in the Indian etailer. SoftBank and Alibaba, through their investments in Flipkart and Paytm Mall, are trying to restrict Amazon in India.
