Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos announced on June 7 he'll invest another $3 billion in Amazon’s business in India. That’s on top of the $2 billion investment he already committed, Reuters reported.
India is the world’s ninth largest economy, with gross domestic product lower than Italy, but higher than Russia, according to 2014 World Bank numbers.
Bezos spoke at a Washington event attended by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi met with President Barack Obama earlier that day.
Amazon will open a Web Services Cloud Region in India this year, Bezos said, and the company is in the process of creating its largest software engineering and development center outside of the United States, located in the India’s southern city of Hyderabad.
Bezos said Amazon had so far built 21 fulfillment centers with over 5 million cubic feet of storage space. Through a link-up with India Post, it reaches all serviceable postal codes in the country.
“We have already created some 45,000 jobs in India and continue to see huge potential in the Indian economy. Our Amazon.in team is surpassing even our most ambitious planned milestones,” Bezos said, according to International Business Times.
Amazons first $2 billion investment in India was announced in 2014, shortly after India’s local online retailer, Flipkart, raised $1 billion, Quartz reported.
Quartz predicts Indian e-commerce market will reach over $10 billion in 2017 and Amazon seems to be gearing up to capture as large a share as possible.
“I can assure you it’s only the beginning and as we say in Amazon, it’s only day one,” Bezos said on Tuesday, adding that the investments would also help start-ups in India.
Amazon, America’s largest online retailer, almost doubled its employee count last year, reaching almost a quarter million.
About two thirds of its sales came from North America. North American sales also grew faster than international sales—over 25 percent versus less than 6 percent.
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