Amazon Alexa VP Considers India A Key Growth Market For Consumer Goods

At the launch of new variants of Amazon Echo, senior vice president of Alexa, Tom Taylor reportedly said that India is a very big market for Amazon in the consumer goods segment, which includes the electronic device market as well. 

On September 25, Amazon introduced three new versions of its smart speaker Amazon Echo and a range of Alexa features in the Indian market. This device range includes All-new Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Studio. 

“The investment in India will continue to grow in the future,” Taylor added, according to media reports. 

By the next month, Amazon Alexa will add a multilingual mode that will allow users in India to talk to the voice assistant in both Hindi and English simultaneously.

‘Amazon To Continue Investing In Long-term Goals In India’

The ecommerce giant has been trying to get Indians on board by constantly localising products and features. Amazon has so far spent $5.5 Bn on its India operation, including $500 Mn investments towards food retail. Recently, it had also set up a new 9.5-acre campus in Hyderabad for its 15K employees in India.

Earlier this month, Amazon India head Amit Agarwal said that Amazon will continue investing towards its long-term goals in India instead of getting distracted by the short term situation such as the current economic slowdown in the country.

Amazon has reported a 17% growth in net sales reaching $59.7 Bn in the first quarter of FY19, compared with $51 Bn in first quarter 2018. The company’s operating income increased to $4.4 Bn in  Q1 2019, compared to the operating income of $1.9 Bn in Q1 2018.

As of April 2018, Amazon India had 67 fulfilment centres across 13 Indian states. On top of it, the company’s processing units are said to be spread across 19 Indian states and employs thousands of people, a testimony to the company’s vast delivery network across India. 

Another notable development this year was the launch of Amazon’s grocery delivery vertical, Amazon Fresh in India, under Prime Now. Amazon Fresh was first launched in Seattle in 2007 and has been the flagship food and grocery delivery offering of Amazon globally.

Further, Amazon has also set its eyes on India’s booming online food ordering and delivery market. Earlier this week, Inc42 exclusively reported that the US-based tech giant is currently approaching restaurants and eateries in Bengaluru to sign up on its platform and is looking to launch the food delivery services before the end of 2019. 

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