Source: ETtech
Amazon, which is locked in a battle against Flipkart, had registered cumulative losses of over Rs 7,000 crore across various units in 2018-19. However, the fresh funding is indicative of Amazon’s confidence in the Indian market.
US online retail company Amazon has made a fresh round of investments in three of its India units totalling Rs 4,472 crore.
The investment comes after Amazon reported a 9% drop in losses from its main Indian marketplace unit in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2019.
Amazon Seller Services, the marketplace unit, got the bulk of the investment at Rs 3,400 crore. Prior to the latest infusion, the unit had received Rs 2,800 crore in the first nine months of the current calendar year.
Of the remaining investment, payments arm Amazon Pay received Rs 900 crore and single-brand food retail business Amazon Retail got Rs 172.5 crore, regulatory documents accessed by ET showed.
The fresh investment brings Amazon’s total investment in Amazon Seller Services this year to Rs 6,200 crore, which is still lower than the Rs 9,450 crore the company pumped into the unit in 2018. Investments in the unit since 2012 stand at Rs 33,521 crore, or around $4.73 billion at the current exchange rate.
On Monday, Amazon reported the FY19 financial performance of its Indian units to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Amazon Seller Services’ loss for the year narrowed to Rs 5,685 crore from Rs 6,287 crore a year before, while revenue grew 54% to Rs 7,593 crore.
While Amazon Pay reported an almost 250% jump in fiscal 2019 loss to Rs 1,161 crore, its revenue nearly doubled to Rs 834 crore. Amazon Retail reported no revenue for the year, according to the filings that ET accessed.
