Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, plans on continuing to invest in India in an effort to stay in lockstep with competitors who have been pouring billions of dollars into companies in the country.
Softbank and Alibaba are two examples of companies that have been investing in India with the two backing Paytm, India’s leading digital payment company. Meanwhile Microsoft, eBay and Tencent of China recently invested in eCommerce company Flipkart via a $1.4 billion round of funding.
It’s not surprising that Amazon would want to continue to invest in India, which is home to one of the fastest growing internet markets and has a population that’s projected to reach between 450 million to 465 million this summer. While China and the U.S. are the leaders in eCommerce spending around the globe, India is forecasted to increase to $48 billion by 2020, noted the report.
Amazon has been in the market for four years now and since then has been able to gain ground over local competitors. Around this time last year, Jeff Bezos said the company would invest $3 billion to expand the Amazon India business after initially investing $2 billion in 2014. In April, the CEO hinted that it would invest more in the Indian unit, noted the report.
Amazon has been on a bit of a spending spree in recent weeks, with the most recent acquisition being its $13.7 billion bid to buy Whole Foods Market. It also inked a deal to acquire Souq.com of the Middle East, which sources said will cost it $650 million, noted the report.
Source: PYMNTS
