Amazon bets big on India as apps witness nearly 500 mn cumulative downloads

Amazon is betting big on the Indian market as the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift to e-commerce, and more consumers are shopping online at a higher frequency on the online retailer’s platform. The company said if one combines the downloads of its platforms such as ‘Amazon.in’ shopping app and Prime Video app, there are close to 500 million downloads, which is almost 75 per cent of the registered internet users in the country today.

Amazon counts Walmart-owned Flipkart, Reliance’s JioMart and Tata among its rivals to tap the booming e-commerce market, which is expected to reach $350 billion by 2030 from $45-50 billion now.

What Amazon has learned from the Covid-19 crisis is how important a role the company and e-commerce can play – for customers as well as for small businesses and the economy. In the last 2 years, Amazon has seen a lot of customers move online, not just in tier-1 and tier-2 cities but also in smaller towns.

“More than 86 per cent of the new customers on Amazon.in are coming from tier 2 and below geographies,” said Kishore Thota, director, customer experience and marketing, Amazon India. “The number of customers revisiting the Amazon app to fulfil their various needs has seen a high double-digit growth.”

Thota said hundreds of millions of Bharat’s customers’ various needs including shopping, paying bills, sending money, buying flight tickets, ordering food from restaurants, medicines from pharmacies, playing games and accessing prime music and video or Mini TV, are being fulfilled on the Amazon.in app and website. IQ Stock