Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is betting on the Indian e-commerce market. The U.S. e-commerce giant injected additional $260 million into its India business ahead of the holiday shopping season in the country, Tech Crunch reported.
Amazon India, officially named Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd., disclosed the funding in a regulatory filing first reported by Indian financial newspaper Mint.
Flipkart is the chief rival of Amazon India that raised $1.5 billion at a valuation of $11.6 billion three months ago from a group of investors including eBay, Microsoft, and Tencent. Alibaba is also bullish on the Indian e-commerce market and the company’s is backing e-commerce site Paytm.
India is the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce, with online retail sales expected to hit $64 billion by 2021.
Amazon India
Amazon is betting big on its Indian marketplace. The e-commerce giant previously invested $2 billion into its Indian operations and launched Amazon Prime in 2016. The online retailing giant also pledged to invest $5 billion in India.
According a report from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Amazon India has the ability to emerge as the dominant e-commerce company in India, Live Mint reported.
The report suggested that the total number of Internet users in the country has increased by 40% over the past year to about 355 million and Amazon India is most likely player to dominate the country’s online retail market in the long run.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) an 85% increase in gross sales volumes in the first three months of 2017 from the same period a year earlier.
“Amazon has done a great job in India so far—they’ve adapted to the local market very well. Some of their solutions from there (in the US), they are customizing those for what makes sense here. And they’re leveraging their great knowledge and capital,” Sandeep Murthy, partner at venture capital firm Lightbox Ventures Management, was quoted as saying by Live Mint.
China remains the world’s largest market for e-commerce, with online retail sales of $681 billion in 2016.
Meanwhile, shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) closed up 1.41% on Friday. The stock is up more than 30% so far this year.