Amazon infuses India operations with additional capital of Rs 2,700 cr; total investments at Rs 25,241 cr

Bengaluru: The US-based world’s largest e-tailer Amazon invested an additional $400 million (Rs 2,700 crore) in two of its Indian subsidiaries, said business intelligence platform Paper.vc on Monday. “Our tally of Amazon’s total investment in its Indian subsidiaries, including this, is $3.6 billion (Rs 25,241 crore),” Paper.vc founder Vivek Durai told IANS from Chennai. According to documents Amazon filed with the regulators at a meeting on 6 August in Bengaluru, the board of directors of Amazon Seller Services Ltd approved allotment of 270 crore equity shares of Rs 10 face value for Rs 2,700 crore to the Singapore-based Amazon Corporate Holdings Ltd and an additional 124,753 shares to Amazon.com Incs Ltd without premium. “The board of directors of Amazon Retail India Ltd on 31 July agreed to allot 10 crore equity shares of Rs 10 face value for Rs 100 crore to its shareholders (Amazon Corporate Holdings and Amazon.com) without premium on rights basis, IANS said Ahead of the retail giant Walmart taking majority stake (77 percent) in India’s e-tail major Flipkart for $16 billion in May, Amazon invested Rs 2,600 crore in its India operations. [caption id=“attachment_4501191” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Amazon logo. Representative image. Reuters.[/caption] “The Amazon board has consented to allot 260 crore shares of Rs 10 face value aggregating Rs 2,600 crore to the shareholders on rights basis in the ratio of their shareholding,” said Amazon Services Ltd in a filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) on 8 May. Amazon, which is competing with homegrown rival Flipkart in the Indian market, has pumped in substantial funding across operations to expand its operations in the country and build delivery infrastructure, a PTI report said earlier Amazon has been infusing funds into its various entities in India, including Amazon Pay, marketplace and wholesale business. These investments have been directed towards building warehouses, strengthening logistics and increasing product assortment. During a recent investor call, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky had said the company would continue to invest in India as it sees great progress with both sellers and customers, even as the parent entity registered a loss of $622 million from international operations in the first quarter of 2018. The company is also investing significant money in marketing and promotions as it looks to bring more consumers to its online shopping platform. Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos had earlier committed to investing a whopping $5 billion in India to cash in on the rapid growth in e-commerce business. --With inputs from agencies