Coronavirus Outbreak: Amazon says India business most affected due to the COVID-19 lockdown

Amazon has said that the COVID-19 pandemic had largely affected its business in India. The global e-commerce giant said that due to the nationwide lockdown it had to cut back on a lot of offerings in India and only deliver essential goods. Amazon said that it will resume its operations after getting the nod from the government. “I think the biggest impact internationally has been in India where, of course, similar to all companies in India, we’re now only fulfilling our essential goods such as grocery, so that’s cut back a lot on our offering," Brian T Olsavsky, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Amazon saying during an earnings call. [caption id=“attachment_6932031” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  Amazon logo. Image: Reuters.[/caption] After the government extended the coronavirus lockdown till 3 May, it had initially allowed e-commerce companies to sell non-essential items. A few days later, the government had cleared the air that-commerce companies can only deliver essential goods. As per a report by Economic Times, Amazon India had then said that the government’s guidelines would come as a disappointment to consumers whose list of essentials had expanded to work from home and study from home products. Announcing its first quarter results for 2020, Amazon said that it would be spending $4 billion in COVID-19 related expenses during its second quarter. The company said that money will be invested in personal protective equipment, enhanced cleaning of facilities, less efficient process paths that better allow for effective social distancing, higher wages for hourly teams, and hundreds of millions to develop its own coronavirus testing capabilities. “There is a lot of uncertainty in the world right now, and the best investment we can make is in the safety and well-being of our hundreds of thousands of employees,” Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said.