With the Indian festive season round the corner, it is time when e-commerce platforms in the country conduct huge sales. Amazon India is ramping up its preparations for the festive season sale starting October 17 with an infusion ₹700 crore ($95.51 million) into its payments services by its parent, Amazon Inc.
According to a regulatory document accessed by business intelligence firm Tofler, Amazon Pay India has allotted 70 crores equity shares to its existing shareholders on a rights basis, at Rs 10 per share. The regulatory filing says the shares were allotted to Singapore-based entity Amazon Corporate Holdings Private Ltd and Amazon.com. Inc Limited, Mauritius.
This is a time when e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart and PayTM Mall go all out to attract customers to their platforms. Indians spend the most during a festive season and this is why e-commerce companies leave no stones unturned to gain the most out of this period. Given that during the pandemic, users will opt to pay using the digital payment methods, investing in its payments services seems like a very obvious and a very smart move, which will help to provide discounts and cashback to the customers using the service. According to Entrackr, Amazon Pay recorded 60 million transactions in June, competing with the likes of Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm.
The last time Amazon Pay had received a fresh infusion of money was back in January this year. It received ₹1,355 crore from the Amazon holding company. Since its establishment in 2016, Amazon Pay has raised a total of ₹5,055 crore in funds from its parent company. Also in January, Jeff Bezos had announced a $1 billion investment to transform more than 10 million small and medium businesses in India to a digital platform by 2025.
Ahead of the festive season, even Amazon India’s rival, Flipkart has been doing some preparations to fend off the competition from Amazon. Its parent company Walmart pumped in $560.45 million in the e-commerce platform ver recently. Flipkart also owns the popular digital payments service PhonePe.
