E-commerce company Amazon India on Tuesday said it has digitised 12 million MSMEs in the country, surpassing its target of digitising 10 million MSMEs one year ahead of time. It also said that it has enabled close to $13 billion in e-commerce exports from India since 2015 and created nearly 1.4 million jobs.
Amazon India in 2022 had said that it would create 2 million direct and indirect jobs in the country, enable $20 billion in exports (the double of its earlier target) and digitise 10 million MSMEs by 2025.
“I’m happy to share that we have already delivered on our first pledge of digitising 10 million small businesses, one year ahead of time. We have enabled over 12 million small businesses to become part of India’s digital economy. We have enabled nearly $13 billion in exports and created close to 1.4 million direct and indirect jobs,” said Samir Kumar, Country Manager, Amazon India at Amazon Smbhav, the company’s annual event for small businesses.
Kumar said the company had started its Amazon Global Selling programme in India in 2015 and “it took us 7 long years to enable $5 billion in cumulative exports from India and then this number has more than doubled in less than two years.”
The role of MSMEs or small businesses as sellers has been key to e-commerce companies’ rapid growth in India over the past decade and will continue to gain significance for companies such as Amazon, Flipkart, Meesho and others as competition in the e-commerce space gets further intensified with the growth of hyperlocal or 10-minute delivery mode.
“As one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, India is a key market for Amazon and our focus areas align well with the government’s vision and priorities of digitising small businesses, boosting exports and creating jobs,” said Amit Agarwal, Senior VP, Emerging Markets at Amazon.
Amazon India’s marketplace arm Amazon Seller Services had reported a 14 per cent growth in revenues while losses had narrowed by 28 per cent for the financial year 2023-24. The company’s net loss for FY24 reduced to Rs 3,469 crore from Rs 4,854 crore during FY23 even as expenses increased by 6.5 per cent to Rs 29,062 crore in FY24 from Rs 27,283 crore in the preceding fiscal.