Company to establish 100 Digital Haats to inspire, support, and onboard Indian businesses of all sizes into the digital economy

New investment will enable US$ 10 billion in cumulative exports by Indian businesses selling on Amazon worldwide by 2025

More than 550,000 Indian businesses are selling on the Amazon marketplace today and over 60,000 sellers are exporting their “Make in India” products worldwide

New Delhi, India—January 15, 2020—Amazon today announced it plans to invest US $1 billion to digitally enable micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and traders across India, including manufacturers, resellers, local offline shops, and brands. The company aims to digitize 10 million MSMEs with this investment, helping Indian businesses grow by selling online worldwide and enabling US $10B in cumulative exports by 2025. As part of this effort, Amazon will establish 100 Digital Haats in cities and villages throughout India. Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced the plan in front of thousands of MSMEs at the inaugural Amazon SMBhav Summit in New Delhi earlier today.

“We’re committed to being a long-term partner of India. And actions speak louder than words,” said Bezos. “Over the next five years, Amazon will invest an incremental US$1 billion to digitize micro and small businesses in cities, towns, and villages across India, helping them reach more customers than ever before. This initiative will use Amazon’s global footprint to create US$10 billion in India exports by 2025. Our hope is that this investment will bring millions more people into the future prosperity of India and at the same time expose the world to the ‘Make in India’ products that represent India’s rich, diverse culture.”

Today, there are more than 550,000 sellers on the Amazon India marketplace and more than 60,000 Indian manufacturers and brands are exporting their “Make in India” products to customers worldwide on Amazon. With today’s announcement, Amazon will help Indian MSMEs grow their cumulative exports to US$10 billion by 2025 through the Amazon Global Selling program, which enables businesses to sell on Amazon marketplaces globally.

Amazon will establish Digital Haats in 100 cities, villages, and communities to help businesses integrate into the digital economy. The Digital Haats will provide services like e-commerce onboarding, imaging and cataloging, warehouse space, logistics, digital marketing, and compliance. Digital Haats will be in local neighborhoods and available to MSMEs irrespective of their association with Amazon. To support local neighborhood shops and kiranas, Amazon will be expanding the Amazon Easy and “I Have Space” programs to provide additional income opportunities. Through Amazon Easy, kirana shops will be able to set up kiosks to provide assistance to their customers in choosing the right product, placing an order on Amazon and earning commission on the sales. Through “I Have Space”, local stores can expand their income by using their shops as a mini delivery center and delivering products ordered on Amazon in their neighborhood.

In addition to the Digital Haats and expansion of Amazon Easy and “I Have Space” programs, Amazon will continue creating opportunities for MSMEs across India through:

• Enabling digital businesses: Amazon will continue helping MSMEs through programs like Saheli, a program that provides training and skills development to women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses by selling online, and Karigar, a program to help local weavers and artisans sell their handloom and hand-crafted products to a large customer base directly on Amazon.
• Making it easy to sell globally: With tens of thousands of MSMEs– including local shops, manufacturers, resellers, and brands – already selling their products worldwide through Amazon Global Selling, the company will continue investing in best-in-class logistics solutions like Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) to ensure any seller – of any size – can seamlessly reach customers around the world.
• Growing income by partnering with Amazon: Amazon has made it easier than ever for local businesses to use their existing space to generate income through programs like “I Have Space” and Amazon Easy. Thousands of Indian businesses are growing by partnering with Amazon through logistics programs.
• Maximizing business efficiency: Indian businesses can harness the power of cloud technology through specialized Amazon Web Services (AWS) offerings tailored for MSMEs that lower business costs. With the power of AWS, businesses can provision the amount of resources that they actually need, knowing they can instantly scale up or down as their demands change.

Bezos detailed Amazon’s Digitize India pledge in the first-ever Amazon SMBhav Summit, a two-day event hosting more than 3,000 businesses, traders, startups, and technology solution companies. The event is designed to provide MSMEs in India an opportunity to engage with Amazon on how to expand their growth nationally and internationally, share learnings, understand new opportunities for online businesses in India, and get insights into future trends. During the Summit, Bezos presented three Small Business Awards to local Indian businesses for Digital SMB of the year, Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, and Global SMB of the Year. In addition to Bezos, speakers included Mr. Narayana Murthy, Co-Founder – Infosys; Mr. Kishore Biyani, Founder & CEO – Future Group; and other industry leaders from across the spectrum of digital businesses.

Amazon’s mission in India is to build a sustainable environment that fosters innovation, creates job opportunities, and helps Indian businesses reach customers globally. The micro, small and medium-size businesses selling on Amazon.in are located across the country including Tier 2 and 3 cities, where they are generating jobs and transforming the retail landscape of the country.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, personalised recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Amazon Global Selling, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire TV Stick, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.aboutamazon.in and follow @AmazonNews_IN.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements other than statements of historical fact, including statements regarding guidance, industry prospects, or future results of operations or financial position, made in this press release are forward-looking. We use words such as anticipates, believes, expects, future, intends, and similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements reflect management’s current expectations and are inherently uncertain. Actual results could differ materially for a variety of reasons, including, among others, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in global economic conditions and customer spending, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet, online commerce, and cloud services, the amount that Amazon invests in new business opportunities and the timing of those investments, the mix of products and services sold to customers, the mix of net sales derived from products as compared with services, the extent to which we owe income or other taxes, competition, management of growth, potential fluctuations in operating results, international growth and expansion, the outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment, sortation, delivery, and data center optimization, risks of inventory management, seasonality, the degree to which we enter into, maintain, and develop commercial agreements, proposed and completed acquisitions and strategic transactions, payments risks, and risks of fulfillment throughput and productivity. In addition, the current global economic climate amplifies many of these risks. These risks and uncertainties, as well as other risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ significantly from management’s expectations, are described in greater detail in Amazon’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings. Although we undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law, you are advised to consult any additional disclosures we make in our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K filed with the SEC.

For more information, please contact:

Madhavi Kochar
kocharm@amazon.com
+91 77606 50211

Arpita Rao
arpita.rao@mslgroup.com
+91 90351 92707