India business most affected due to Covid-19 outbreak, says Amazon

Amazon on Friday said the biggest impact it faced due to the Covid-19 pandemic was in India.

During the company’s earnings call on Friday, Brian T Olsavsky, senior vice-president and chief financial officer of Amazon, said the e-commerce firm was only delivering essential goods, such as groceries, cutting back a lot of its offerings in the country. “We will expand when the Indian government announces that we are allowed to resume operations,” he said.

Like in its home market in the US, Amazon in India is pitted against Walmart, which acquired Flipkart in 2018 in a $16-billion deal. It is also starting to see the heat from Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance’s e-commerce venture JioMart. Last month, Facebook announced an investment of $5.7 billion in Reliance Jio Platforms for a 9.99 per cent stake.