India is a very important part of Amazon's mission: Amit Agarwal

We see tremendous opportunity in India to have a very large and active customer base that essentially depends on Amazon to buy anything they wish, says Amit Agarwal, Country Head, Amazon India. Excerpts from interview with ETNOW.

What is Amazon's mission?
Amazon’s global mission is to be earth’s most customer-centric company. India is a very large part of that in terms of population and importance. Clearly as a mission we cannot claim to be earth’s most customer-centric company. India is a very important part of that mission. As a business opportunity, look at all the factors in India in terms of the internet population -- second only to China -- how consumption is growing, how the small-medium business base is rapidly coming online, how quickly customers are adopting convenience. We see tremendous opportunity in India to have a very large and active customer base that essentially depends on Amazon to buy anything they wish. And we see an opportunity in getting a very large Prime base that is enjoying daily life using Amazon services. I think this is a very large part of what we could see happening in coming decades.

Secondly, Indian manufacturers are using Amazon to reach out to global customers, so we have Amazon marketplaces. And as I said, that number has already crossed a billion dollars, growing very rapidly to $5 billion in three years. That allows customers in other market places to get access to a selection they do not have access to. It actually fuels the growth of other market places. It is a great win-win for Amazon and India. If you look at the domestic and global market, for us India is a key accelerator. As a team, what we are finding is good for customers in India, it is very clearly marrying with what is actually good for the country. When you think of digital India, Make In India, the domestic focus very clearly blends with the digital India focus and the skill India focus.

The global focus clearly intersects Make In India at scale. What we are seeing is that success in India will not only drive e-commerce growth, but we might also have a big role to play in growing the SME base, growing jobs and helping the Indian economy grow. That is a purpose point of view. My team finds it very energising to come and work every day for the great opportunity to help Amazon. We find ourselves in the unique position to be participants in this transformation that is happening in the country.

And you are already invested or committed to invest quite a significant amount?
Yes, we have invested. We have committed $5.5 billion, of which $500 million is committed to just focussing on agriculture, farmers and farm-to-fork.

What is the path to profitability? Is it still a long time away?
It is very early in the evolution of e-commerce and we have to realise that India is trying to become relevant in e-commerce in a hurry. What I mean by that is we were not gifted with the same established infrastructure of logistics, a mail order catalogue business, a seller base that had organised retail, or a payment infrastructure that was developed. To offer a great customer experience, while in other geographies we could piggyback on that infrastructure, in India it still has to be built. And building that requires you to invest capital ahead of scale. So, it is not about loss making, it is about the investments that you are making ahead of scale. What we look for are indicators of whether that investment brings in the right kind of behaviour from customers and small-medium businesses to spin this flywheel in a way that has similar characteristics to what led us to build a large profitable business. We are seeing that in India already. Having said that, if our ambition is hundreds of millions of customers, to do that will take a lot of investment.