Amazon records 29% higher losses in India business

BENGALURU: The international losses of Amazon jumped 29 percent to $622 million for the March 2018 quarter, against $481 million for the corresponding period in the previous year. The losses are on the rise due to the web retailer’s large investments in India.

However, the company has been curtailing losses compared to the previous few quarters. From $936 million in the red quarter ending September 30, 2017, and the annual loss climbed to $3 billion dollars for 2017.

Overall, Amazon has doubled its quarterly profit to $1.6 billion on the back of Amazon Web Services (AWS) and its advertising business. An increment in the share was also registered 43 percent growth in net sales at $51 billion dollars for three months ending March. The company is also set to increase its subscription price for Prime in the US to $119 from the current $99 annually.

Amazon’s CFO Brian Olsavsky mentioned that the company will continue investing capital even with the losses being incurred.

“We’ll continue to invest in India where we’re seeing great progress with both sellers and also customers. And we like the momentum we’ve seen there. The Prime programme started in the first year in India grew faster than any Prime programme we’ve seen in other countries. We’re adding local and video content. We’re also adding other benefits, Prime benefits… We’re rolling out devices there, and we’re seeing Indian developers developing skills for Alexa. It is important to us that they all are still delighting customers and growing to the best of their ability.” – said, Brian Olsavsky