After coming back to take charge of Amazon’s India operations, Samir Kumar, the Country Manager, dropped a bombshell by revealing that a whopping 70 per cent of Amazon’s new customers are now coming from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. Kumar admitted that these customers were not too happy with the speed and quality of service compared to their metro counterparts. To tackle this issue head-on, Amazon is gearing up to make significant investments to enhance speed, user experience, and reliability for these customers.

The e-commerce behemoth is all set to ramp up its quick commerce service following the extremely positive results from its pilot run in Bengaluru. In an exclusive chit-chat with businessline, Kumar teased, “Get ready for some big moves.” Despite being a late entrant in the game, Amazon is gearing up to take on established players like Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy Instamart in this rapidly growing segment.

This aggressive expansion plan is part of Amazon’s renewed focus on India, which is backed by a whopping $15 billion investment commitment set to be rolled out by 2030. This investment is on top of the $11 billion that Amazon has already pumped into the country over the last decade.

At the core of Amazon’s strategy in India is its seller ecosystem, which has now expanded to include a whopping 1.6 million businesses across the nation. The platform is also working on reducing fees for sellers to enable them to offer a more affordable range of products, especially catering to value-conscious customers in smaller towns.

Kumar also unveiled Amazon’s ambitious goal of facilitating $80 billion in exports from India by 2030 through its Global Selling programme, which is already supporting 150,000 Indian sellers in reaching international markets. When quizzed about India’s significance in Amazon’s global operations, Kumar left no room for doubt, stating that “India remains one of Amazon’s largest and most strategic e-commerce markets globally.”

Touching on the topic of job creation, Kumar highlighted that Amazon has already created one million direct and indirect jobs, with a target of hitting the two million mark. “The scale of what we’ve built is enormous, but what hasn’t changed is the energy and focus on transforming how India buys and sells,” Kumar remarked. He also stressed that Amazon is still in its early days, with a lot of untapped potential waiting to be explored. “We have a team of innovators who are constantly brainstorming new ideas and asking critical questions,” he added.

With its massive investment plans, quick commerce expansion, and renewed focus on smaller cities and towns, Amazon is making it loud and clear that India is still at the heart of its global ambitions, despite facing regulatory hurdles and stiff competition from local players.

So, like, maybe it’s just me, but it seems like Amazon is really going all-in on India, huh? Like, they’re putting in all this money and effort, and it’s kind of a big deal. India’s becoming a huge market for them, and they’re not holding back. It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out in the coming years.