Amazon is betting big on India’s surging internet growth. After committing a staggering $2 Billion for its India operations last year, Amazon has now announced several other service launches in India, apart from another whopping $5 Billion, which it plans to invest over the course of next few years, reports ET.
In order to grow its market in India, the company will introduce Amazon Prime in India by the end of this year, it most popular service in other markets, specially the US. The company will offer instant video and subscription-based e-commerce services for Prime users.
As Amazon is planning to launch its Amazon Instant Video (AIV) service in India this year, it has already started conversations with music labels and producers for the content. In December, the company hired Nitesh Kripalani, former Sony Entertainment executive to lead this new media services in India.
Last year, it announced that it will invest $2 billion for its Indian operations to expand its warehouses to compete with the local eCommerce players like Flipkart and Snapdeal. This new investment in India will put pressure on Flipkart and Snapdeal.
Anc incidentally, while Amazon’s previous $2 billion was announced just a day after Flipkart secured some $1 Billion in fresh funding, the current $5 Billion too, comes amid speculations that Flipkart is looking to raise probably its final funding round, which will value it to the north of $15 Billion, before it pushes for an IPO.
Amazon has completed two years in India and its business is now worth at least $2 billion in gross merchandise. Earlier, Amazon announced that it will bringing its Amazon Web Services (AWS), a suite of cloud services to India by 2016.
A source familiar with this development of the company told Economic Times
Our biggest financial backer (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos) doesn’t need a fresh pitch while deciding every new investment. We are really long on India, investment figures are easily in multiples of billion dollars.
Reports from Morgan Stanley and several other noted analysts have stated that India’s Internet market is going to worth about $137 billion by 2020. So, if the top three Indian eCommerce companies – Flipkart, Snapdeal and PayTM decides to raise funding to get one step closer to become India’s leading eCommerce company, the investors would be ready to invest. However, that investment might scale up to as much as $20 Billion.
