Amazon Seller Services gets Rs 2,900 crore fresh funding from parent for India business expansion

Mumbai: Global e-commerce giant Amazon has invested fresh funding of Rs 2,900 crore in Amazon Seller Services or Amazon India as part of its $5 billion India business expansion plan, according to a report in Financial Express. The company raised the funds from its Singapore-based group entity Amazon Corporate Holdings and another Mauritius-based group entity Amazon.com.incs, the FE report said.  So far, the Jeff Bezos-headed company has injected $1 billion into its India arm in 2017-18 fiscal year alone. The news comes in the backdrop of Morgan Stanley predicting on Monday that the market value of Amazon will go up to a whopping $1 trillion in a year. In the past, Amazon India has received funds from its US-based parent twice. In June, the firm arm got Rs 1,680 crore and in September in another round bagged Rs 1,620 crore as funding. As of now, total investments in the India arm has gone up to almost $1 billion. Brian T Olsavsky, chief financial officer, Amazon, told FE, “It is international expansion and primarily in India where we’re continuing to add benefits. And we launched Prime there a year ago if you remember, and we’ve had more Prime members join in India than in any other country in the first 12 months.” Three years ago Jeff Bezos, Amazon chief executive officer, had revealed his company’s pledge to invest $2 billion on its India business. A year after that Amazon.com said it would invest another $3 billion in  its India unit. Of late, the overseas based e-commerce player’s profit has taken a marginal hit on fierce competition from its Indian rival, Flipkart.