Amazon held its Flagship Great Indian festival sale in the end of September timed with rival Flikpart’s Big Billion Day.
BENGALURU: Amazon's international losses continued to grow into the third quarter fueled by the company’s aggressive push in India, swelling to $936 million compared to $541 million in the September quarter of 2016. The nine month losses form international businesses grew nearly threefold to $2.1 billion from $796 million in the same period last year.
India continued to be the main focus for the company internationally, with Amazon launching the Echo and Alexa devices, launching the first Prime Day in the country and also expanding Amazon Business.
"It is international expansion and primarily in India where we're continuing to add benefits. And we launched Prime there a year ago, if you remember, and we've had more Prime members join in India than in any other country in the first 12 months. We have free shipping on 10 million items there and we're continuing to add benefits; Prime Video, Amazon Family," CFO Brian Olsavsky said in an earning call late Thursday in response to what was driving international losses.
"We had the first Prime Day there this year, Prime Music, Amazon Business is also expanding in India. So, a lot of positive momentum and investment going on in India, very pleased with that. We also recently announced Echo and Alexa are available in India. So that should be well received by the Indian consumer base."
Amazon's third quarter sales grew 35% to $43.7 billion. In India, the early Diwali in India pushed sales for Amazon in Q3 than Q4. Amazon held its Flagship Great Indian festival sale in the end of September timed with rival Flikpart’s Big Billion Day. The sales continued through the month-long period up to Diwali last week.
"The Diwali holiday in India was a few days earlier, which may be pushed some sales into Q3 versus Q4," Amazon India head Amit Agarwal told ET in an interview Thursday that sales grew 4.5x over normal days while units sold grew 2.5x over normal.
"This was the biggest event in our history. We served more customers than anyone else. The customers who shopped on Amazon this Diwali was more than 2x from last Diwali," he added.
Amazon also introduced its AI-backed Echo device.
Source: The Economic Times
Come on $936 million is mere chump change to Amazon; bleed a little now to secure massive gains in the coming future why not?