Top India challenges ahead for new Amazon CEO

A toughened upcoming ecommerce policy legal feuds the imposition of new taxes and widespread anger among the leading retail associations the road ahead for upcoming Amazon CEO Andy Jassy will not be a smooth one in India when he takes over the reins from Jeff Bezos in the third quarter of this yearThe fact is that just like Bezos Jassy also treats India as one of the key growth marketsIn 2018 Jassy had said that the AsiaPacific region has huge potential to write the next growth story for Amazon Web Services AWS with India playing a key role in Cloud adoption among both enterprises and the governmentsThe business in the AsiaPacific region is very broad and is growing very quickly The business is growing rapidly in China India Singapore Australia and SouthEast Asian countries he had said during a press conferenceIn November 2020 AWS had announced to invest Rs 20761 crore nearly 27 billion to set up multiple data centres in Hyderabad This will be the second AWS region within India after Mumbai which is expected to go live by mid2022Last month the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology MeitY had launched a quantum computing applications lab in the country in collaboration with AWSIn the financial year 2020 the revenue of Amazon Seller Service the online marketplace unit of ecommerce giant Amazon India grew by 43 per cent from Rs 75935 crore to Rs 108476 croreThe company is confident about its future growth the regulatory filings readMeanwhile Amazon Internet Service Pvt Ltd the Indian unit of AWS witnessed 58 per cent increase in its revenue to reach Rs 42159 crore in FY 2020However the year 2020 has changed a lot for the ecommerce giant in the countryBezos who came to India in January 2020 after a gap of six years had to face intense political heat in Delhi before Mumbai sea breeze cooled him in the presence of sizzling celebritiesBezos did not get time from any top government functionaries and The Washington Post owned by him was blamed for this debacle Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a cold shoulder to the worlds richest man then by not meeting him There were indications that the Washington Posts editorial stance cost him the meetings with top Indian ministersTraders across the country staged protests under the aegis of the Confederation of All India Traders CAIT According to CAIT more than five lakh traders were present at the countrywide protestsThe big Amazon announcements like 1 billion investment for the small and medium businesses SMBs in India and creating 10 lakh new jobs by 2025 were not enough to address the traders ireLast year Amazon had acquired a 49 per cent stake in Future Coupons a Future group entity In August Reliance Retail Ventures Limited RRVL a subsidiary of RIL announced that it is acquiring the debtladen businesses of the Future Group for Rs 24713 croreAmazon said that Future Group violated a contract with it by entering into the sale agreement with the Mukesh Ambaniled retail majorThe matter reached various courts both in the country as well as abroadIn a big relief to Amazon the Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed Future Retail Ltd to maintain status quo in relation to its deal with Reliance the Bar and Bench reportedFuture Retail Ltd FRL said the company after due approval from the Competition Commission of India CCI and no objection from SEBI had filed the scheme of arrangement before NCLT Mumbai on January 26 The application is yet to be taken up by the NCLTOn Tuesday the CAIT welcomed the Union Budget proposal to impose 2 per cent extra tax on foreign ecommerce companies like Amazon whether engaged in business of sale of goods or providing services acceptance of offer for sale placing of purchase order acceptance of purchase order payment of consideration or supply of goods and services partly or wholly The provision will be applicable retrospectively with effect from April 1The trade leaders have demanded that the ecommerce trade in India should be looked into in a comprehensive manner and not only the trading of goods but all kinds of services availed through any online method should also be brought under the ambit of the proposed ecommerce policyJassy a seasoned tech honcho who has grown AWS to its current position as the biggest provider of public Cloud infrastructure on the planet and a significant driver of Amazons profitability is aware of all the complexities to do business in India and the year 2021 will reveal moreThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever