Monday 29 April 2019

FDI laws had minimal impact on India operations: Amazon CFO

Amazon's India operations did not see any major impact in the quarter ending March owing to the recent FDI clarifications in e-commerce which was implemented from February. Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said the overall impact of the new law was 'minimal' for the first quarter sales of Amazon in India. 

"We did make some changes to our structure to stay in compliance with all regulations. There were a few days of downtime for some of our selection. But for the full quarter the impact was minimal. And we're in compliance and very, very happy with the progress of the business in India,” Olsavsky said during a call with analysts after Amazon announced its first quarter earnings. 

The government's latest clarifications for foreign e-commerce companies had Walmart-- which acquired Flipkart here last year--and Amazon worried as it puts multiple limitations on these players, including restricting e-tailers to invest in seller entities. To comply with local laws, Amazon divested part of its holding in large online seller entities--Cloudtail and Appario. 

"We feel pretty good about the Q1 growth there, even despite some downtime in India,” Olsavsky added

The international business of Amazon, which India is a major part of, reported sales of over $16 billion for the quarter ending March 2019 as against almost $15 billion during the first quarter of 2018. Its losses went down significantly to $90 million during the same period compared to $622 million a year ago.

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