Amazon invest $1bn in India- a key growth market
Jeff Bezos, Amazon boss has announced £770m ( $1bn) investment in India, digitising small and medium businesses allowing them to sell and operate online, saying the country is a key growth market. Speaking in New Delhi he said the 21st century is “going to be the Indian century”.
The e-commerce billionaire’s three-day visit to India and immediately paid respect to Mahatma Gandhi “ Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn to live forever”.
Mr Bezos also said “ The dynamism, the energy – the growth, India has is something special and it’s a democracy”. He expects $10bn worth of India-made goods by 2025, and that Amazon has already committed to $5.5bn of investment India. India’s e-commerce market is dominated by amazon and Flipkart which is owned by US retail giant Walmart.
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries which has a massive mobile phone customer base, said it had been inviting people to sign up to its grocery delivery service.
However, thousands of small traders across 300 cities have demonstrated against what the see as Amazon’s negative impact on the local retail market, and allege Amazon is driving them out of business by offering sharply discounted products and favouring a few big seller on its platform. Amazon obviously denies these allegations. Competition, efficiency and availability is good for end users.