Amazon has its competitors in India. And we know the country’s domestic players don’t give in easy. And the game has gotten even more interesting ever since the latter started raising funds from some pretty big names like Softbank and Alibaba. Not one to be daunted, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has said that his company will continue pumping funds into its India unit to match rivals.
Recently, Amazon rival Paytm managed to win the backing of both SoftBank and Alibaba, who have together pumped almost $2 Billion on the firm. However, more worrying is the $1.4 Billion received by Indian e-tailer Flipkart, which raised that sum from Microsoft, eBay and China’s Tencent. This gives Flipkart significant clout and could well enable it to go toe-to-toe with Amazon India.
However, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said that his company will keep investing and growing in India. The statement came following Bezos’ meeting with PM Modi.
Terrific meeting with @narendramodi. Always impressed, energized by optimism and invention in India. Excited to keep investing and growing.
The stakes are very high certainly, but then so is the prize. India has around 450 million denizens who regularly deploy the Internet. As such, this market is a must have for any company looking to establish its dominance in the global online market. And its not all numbers either. The volume of online sales stemming out of India is expected to reach $48 billion by 2020.
Amazon’s India unit already has $5 Billion to back it. Of this, $2 Billion was received in 2014 and another $3 Billion investment came last summer. As huge as this amount sounds, it could still not be all that Bezos has in mind for India. Particularly after his last tweet, it will not surprise anyone if Amazon decides to invest yet more funds into its India unit.
More funds would mean an expanded range of services, more products, a bigger marketing push to its Amazon Prime service and so on. And that could well put Flipkart in a position where it needs to raise yet more funds. True, it has gigantic backers but there is probably a limit to just how far they are willing to take the battle with Amazon. Either way, co-existence doesn’t seem a likelihood and we could well see a clear victor emerge in a year or so.
