Amazon Is Adding More India Retailers to Its Shopping Cart
(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. is on a shopping spree in India.
Helmed by the world's richest man Jeff Bezos, Amazon has bought into one brick-and-mortar retailer, backed purchase of another and is reported to be in talks to acquire a stake in at least one more as the online retailing giant looks to get more boots on the ground in the world's fastest-growing major economy.
| Target | When | Deal Size /Structuring |
| Shoppers Stop Ltd. | September, 2017 | Bought 5 percent for 1.8 billion rupees |
| More (owned by Aditya Birla Group) | September, 2018 | Amazon and Samara co-invested in Witzig Advisory Services, which acquired More |
| Future Retail Ltd. | On-going talks for 9.5% stake with an option to buy all in the future, according to a report in The Economic Times | Unknown |
Source: Company filings, media reports
Spokespersons at Amazon and Future Retail declined to comment.
Amazon's bite-sized purchases into smaller traditional retailers will help it gain greater access to smaller cities and offline consumers in a country where it's betting $5 billion to expand aggressively. India is arguably the last big market for Amazon after the U.S. e-commerce giant missed out on China, the world's other large market that's dominated by local rivals.
It had also pursued Flipkart Online Services Pvt, India's leading e-commerce company and its biggest local rival, before losing the deal to Walmart Inc.
Read here on why Walmart and Amazon are spending billions to win India
Picking up stakes in Shoppers Stop, More and others will give Amazon “tonnes of data” on shopping trends and access to customers in smaller cities who may not want to buy online, according to Santosh Kanekar, Mumbai-based founder of advisory, BeLive Corp. “Amazon always plays the long game and the long game in India is omni-channel.”
To contact the reporters on this story: P R Sanjai in Mumbai at psanjai@bloomberg.net;Ari Altstedter in Mumbai at aaltstedter@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: K. Oanh Ha at oha3@bloomberg.net, Bhuma Shrivastava, Candice Zachariahs
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Signature Play: The Classic Cocktail Is Dead. Or Is It?
Classic cocktails are disappearing from India's cocktail menus. But they're still being ordered, taught to bartenders and borrowed from. So, who's really having the last drink?
-
A New Samvat Wishlist: Inclusive Prosperity And Human Development
India has strengthened its economic foundations through infrastructure, digital access and enterprise. Its next growth chapter must deepen productivity, create better livelihoods and widen participation in prosperity.
-
Love, Sex Aur Dhokha: The Audacious Plot To Spy On Jensen Huang
A Taipei dinner, a Singapore chip buyer and a suspected Chinese asset: inside the alleged spy operation that got close to NVIDIA's Jensen Huang.
-
Ten Things I Learnt This Samvat
Patience can be a trap. Cheap stocks can stay cheap. Leverage can wipe you out. What did Samvat 2082 teach us? Niraj Shah writes on 10 lessons from the year gone by.
-
Talking Points This Week: Tech Nerves, FII Buying, And A Faraway Banking Shock
The global markets are not shining this Diwali. The exception in the large markets is, India.
-
Midterm Rally Lasted A Day. The Hard Reality Of A Divided US May Last Two Years | Opinion
Between a contested AI boom, a debt ceiling that arrives in 2027 and a president with every incentive to act alone, the next two years may prove more volatile than the first day's rally suggests.
-
Blue Wave Will Derail the AI Trade but Won't Dismantle the AI Era | Unhedged Position
The Democrats' sweep of the US Congress will see politics collide with economic forces both over the long and short term.
-
It's Time To Take The GST Council's Bet On Trust Global
Payment records can prove India's services exports, and clear, proportionate rules can bring foreign digital sellers into the tax net.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
