6 ms·

Amazon omits India business in earnings, a first in years

80 points by jmsflknr 4y ago

local_crmdgeon 4y ago
Amazon seems to be investing more in LATAM than India - would love to see the trend continue and spread
vivegi 4y ago
At least the last two quarterly slides are similar in terms of lumping International operations ("Segment Results – International" slide #10 in [1], [2]) in one slide. Is the article about previous qualitative callouts they used to make that were India focused activites that are now deemphasized? [1]: https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2023/q1/Webslides_Q123_Final.pdf https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2023/q1/... [2]: https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2022/q4/Webslides_Q422_Final.pdf https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2022/q4/...
gsatic 4y ago
India looks like a very overhyped market. Most of the wealth lies in a handful of cities. Margins outside are wafer thin to non existent.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  36% of India lives in urban areas and that number is increasing rapidly. It's by no means an easy market due to a multitude of reasons (infra, supply chain, politics, corruption, you name it), but if you can pull it off there's plenty of money to be made just in the Tier 1 metros.
  - fshr 4y ago
    It's crazy to think 36% is still over half a billion people. Hard to fathom for someone not from that part of the world.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  Add to it intensive state bureaucracy and need to "grease it" everywhere you go and when whatever you are trying to do.
- HlessClaudesman 4y ago
  A huge addressable market ≠ A market that wants to be addressed.
- unmole 4y ago
  > Most of the wealth lies in a handful of cities. Margins outside are wafer thin to non existent. Focusing entirely on large cities and ignoring the hinterland is a perfectly viable option. In fact that is what most consumer businesses in India do.
- kingstoned 4y ago
  India, like Brazil is perpetually the "country of the future".
  - jutrewag 4y ago
    [dead]
  - kwere 4y ago
    india has a real chance to develop fully if the BJP can tread between development policies and induist fascism, at worst talent will move to uae or usa
- dangerwill 4y ago
  I mean to be fair, you also see this in the US and Europe, especially in de-industrialized areas that have had population flight.
- local_crmdgeon 4y ago
  The street hawkers are also remarkably underestimated. They manage inventory, prices, and know their customer base FAR better than any large org could. They know the upcoming events, have lower prices, don't pay taxes etc.
anshumankmr 4y ago
Wish Amazon had a better selection of clothes. Major misstep in my opinion. Though, I still think Amazon's customer service is second to none, I have had issues with products and they have been almost seemlessly returned.
- VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
  That's always been the best part of Amazon. They've always made returns super easy with pretty much no questions asked.
- bitL 4y ago
  As a former 3rd party seller on Amazon, selling clothing online is a waste of time/money as return rates are enormous and people cheat all the time so no non-manufacturers can actually make any profit. That was in the US, I assume in India the situation is way worse.
  - joenot443 4y ago
    How do people cheat?
    - distances 4y ago
      Not sure if parent meant this, but for example by using a winter jacket for a skiing trip or a dress for a party, and returning the item afterwards.
      - astura 4y ago
        This type of return fraud has a name - it's called "wardrobing."
        okdood64 4y ago
        > return fraud Is it actually fraud if it's a 'no questions asked returns' policy, and does not specify anywhere you aren't allow to wear it for an extended period of time before returning?
whack 4y ago
> Amazon has poured over $7 billion into its India operations over the last decade and competes aggressively with Walmart-backed Flipkart. Amazon is lagging Flipkart and struggling to make inroads in smaller Indian cities and towns, according to a report by Sanford C. Bernstein. Its global rival Walmart, in contrast, is doubling down on India and has spent close to $2.5 billion in the country this year alone. I wonder to what extent this is driven by Amazon recognizing that it is losing to Flipkart in India, and doesn't want egg on its face. I remember when Uber finally threw in the towel in China and conceded to Didi. I wonder if Amazon is planning a similar move in India.
perryizgr8 4y ago
Personal experience suggests otherwise. It has been years I have used Flipkart or any other website to order online (or watched anybody I know do so). It is always Amazon. And online purchases are way up, even compared to a year ago. Almost everybody with a TV I know has a Fire TV stick. Most of my friends have at least one Echo device. A couple have even gone all in and put an Echo in every room. Prime video is extremely popular, they produce a lot of Indian content and license a lot of regional stuff too. They even telecast a live cricket series recently. They've even raised prices for Prime subscription, which indicates that they're confident people will pay more for what they're offering. Hardly the signs of "scaling back". Personally, I feel the article is not well informed. For example it makes the assertion that Amazon is lagging Flipkart. It is absolutely not. Flipkart is a joke. Flipkart sells a lot of exclusive mobile phones on razor thin margins (maybe even net loss), and since phones are relatively high value items the GMV turns out to be higher than Amazon's. Amazon doesn't offer deep discounts on phones, which is fine IMO. GMV is not everything. Similarly, TFA references Amazon’s "shutdown of multiple services". 1. Amazon Distribution - this was a very small scale operation, maybe the pilot just didn't work out. This was operating in 3 districts in the country (we have 766 districts). 2. Food delivery - this is a tough nut to crack in India, and Amazon was incredibly late to the game. Even established players (Zomato, Swiggy) are always struggling. People simply aren't ready to pay a substantial portion of the bill for delivery in India. This may well turn out to be a wise decision in the long-term. There might be a long struggle and no big profits in this game. 3. Online learning platform - I have no idea why Amazon thought this was an appropriate market for them. They were very late in this too. The competition is cut-throat, and it is a really unique market. I don't think they would have been able to make a space for themselves here. On the other hand, Amazon launched its second AWS region in India and pledged to invest $4.4 billion in its cloud operations in the country by 2030. Hardly a "scaling back".[1] [1] - https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/27/amazon-shutting-down-wholesale-distribution-in-third-business-exit-in-india/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/27/amazon-shutting-down-whole...
- bharathyes 4y ago
  the article is based on Amazons document and not based on subjective personal experiences. "amazon lagging behind flipkart" comment was in regards to market penetration in smaller towns. Given that all the gier 1 cities are well covered by the tech giants the next market to tap into would be the small cities and towns. the arsicle indicates thats where amazon it falling behind flipkart in making progress.
crossroadsguy 4y ago
As an urban Amazon India user I can say few things: - Amazon is increasingly becoming unusable. I feel I am browsing spam. And page over page it feels spam hasn’t ended. It doesn’t feel like a shopping experience at all. - I really can’t trust its reviews anymore. Just can’t. It’s gone. Besides it has some weird logic of placing items. Read again — spam! - In fact a lot that I would buy from Amazon I buy in stores or from those instant delivery apps like BlinkIt, Zepto (5-15 min kinda delivery) - Amazon’s Prime delivery is a joke now. There are very very few products that I can get in 1 day or the next day. - However Flipkart customer support is pathetic. So much that I really dread buying anything there. I buy something on it maybe once in years. But most folks go for reach and price. Customer service is the only reason I still tolerate rest of Amazon.in - My folks in the village almost always use Flipkart. Some might not have heard of Amazon. So of this huge arse market — Amazon is alienating its target audience and has never even touched the rest.
- nerdbert 4y ago
  Amazon feels like spam here in Europe too. Sketchy-looking products from weird brands that I have no faith in. A simple search fails to turn up items matching the keywords I entered (even though those items do exist in their catalog) and instead gives me a dumpsterload of garbage results. Increasingly Amazon is my absolute last resort.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - rcme 4y ago
    I have the same experience. I still prefer ordering from Amazon due to the shipping, but I find my self needing to spend more and more time off Amazon looking for an adequate product because Amazon’s search has been taken over my cheap Chinese crap from sellers with names like UDIAMI. I wish they had an option to filter things like that.
- unmole 4y ago
  Counterpoint from another urban Amazon India user: - Amazon is still the first place I look at when I want to buy something - While the availability of next day delivery has reduced, shipping times are still decent and more importantly reliable - Amazon Fresh has a much better selection than any instant delivery app and I can usually get same day delivery - Cities account for the overwhelming majority of discretionary spending suited for e-commerce. I am not convinced servicing most small towns in India is profitable. The so called huge market is not something you can make money from.
WeylandYutani 4y ago
IMO whenever Amazon is actually faced with competition THAT KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING they fail. In the Netherlands someone copied Amazon 20 years ago and by the time the real Amazon showed up they didn't really bother to invest. And we all know how they got decimated in China.
- sagaro 4y ago
  This is very true. Amazon wouldn't enter South Korea because there is this company called Coupang, which does everything that Amazon does (eCommerce, video streaming, food delivery etc )
vivegi 4y ago
There is an initiative called ONDC [1] that is aiming to bring to e-commerce in India the same kind of network based approach that the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) did for payments. ONDC's charter is quite ambitious and it is trying to become the network for ecommerce in the country. While it is absolutely not a contender to the established ecommerce players in terms of reach, spread, depth etc., yet, it could be a gamechanger if it gets adopted far and wide. I don't for a moment claim this is perhaps the cause for Amazon to scale down ops in India. Just pointing a broader trend and strategic threat. [1]: https://ondc.org/ https://ondc.org/

80 points by jmsflknr 4y ago

Amazon seems to be investing more in LATAM than India - would love to see the trend continue and spread

At least the last two quarterly slides are similar in terms of lumping International operations ("Segment Results – International" slide #10 in [1], [2]) in one slide. Is the article about previous qualitative callouts they used to make that were India focused activites that are now deemphasized? [1]: https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2023/q1/Webslides_Q123_Final.pdf https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2023/q1/... [2]: https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2022/q4/Webslides_Q422_Final.pdf https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2022/q4/...

gsatic 4y ago

India looks like a very overhyped market. Most of the wealth lies in a handful of cities. Margins outside are wafer thin to non existent.

rippercushions 4y ago
36% of India lives in urban areas and that number is increasing rapidly. It's by no means an easy market due to a multitude of reasons (infra, supply chain, politics, corruption, you name it), but if you can pull it off there's plenty of money to be made just in the Tier 1 metros.
- fshr 4y ago
  It's crazy to think 36% is still over half a billion people. Hard to fathom for someone not from that part of the world.
TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
Add to it intensive state bureaucracy and need to "grease it" everywhere you go and when whatever you are trying to do.
HlessClaudesman 4y ago
A huge addressable market ≠ A market that wants to be addressed.
unmole 4y ago
> Most of the wealth lies in a handful of cities. Margins outside are wafer thin to non existent. Focusing entirely on large cities and ignoring the hinterland is a perfectly viable option. In fact that is what most consumer businesses in India do.
kingstoned 4y ago
India, like Brazil is perpetually the "country of the future".
- jutrewag 4y ago
  [dead]
- kwere 4y ago
  india has a real chance to develop fully if the BJP can tread between development policies and induist fascism, at worst talent will move to uae or usa
dangerwill 4y ago
I mean to be fair, you also see this in the US and Europe, especially in de-industrialized areas that have had population flight.
local_crmdgeon 4y ago
The street hawkers are also remarkably underestimated. They manage inventory, prices, and know their customer base FAR better than any large org could. They know the upcoming events, have lower prices, don't pay taxes etc.

anshumankmr 4y ago

Wish Amazon had a better selection of clothes. Major misstep in my opinion. Though, I still think Amazon's customer service is second to none, I have had issues with products and they have been almost seemlessly returned.

VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
That's always been the best part of Amazon. They've always made returns super easy with pretty much no questions asked.
bitL 4y ago
As a former 3rd party seller on Amazon, selling clothing online is a waste of time/money as return rates are enormous and people cheat all the time so no non-manufacturers can actually make any profit. That was in the US, I assume in India the situation is way worse.
- joenot443 4y ago
  How do people cheat?
  - distances 4y ago
    Not sure if parent meant this, but for example by using a winter jacket for a skiing trip or a dress for a party, and returning the item afterwards.
    - astura 4y ago
      This type of return fraud has a name - it's called "wardrobing."
      - okdood64 4y ago
        > return fraud Is it actually fraud if it's a 'no questions asked returns' policy, and does not specify anywhere you aren't allow to wear it for an extended period of time before returning?

whack 4y ago

> Amazon has poured over $7 billion into its India operations over the last decade and competes aggressively with Walmart-backed Flipkart. Amazon is lagging Flipkart and struggling to make inroads in smaller Indian cities and towns, according to a report by Sanford C. Bernstein. Its global rival Walmart, in contrast, is doubling down on India and has spent close to $2.5 billion in the country this year alone. I wonder to what extent this is driven by Amazon recognizing that it is losing to Flipkart in India, and doesn't want egg on its face. I remember when Uber finally threw in the towel in China and conceded to Didi. I wonder if Amazon is planning a similar move in India.

perryizgr8 4y ago

Personal experience suggests otherwise. It has been years I have used Flipkart or any other website to order online (or watched anybody I know do so). It is always Amazon. And online purchases are way up, even compared to a year ago. Almost everybody with a TV I know has a Fire TV stick. Most of my friends have at least one Echo device. A couple have even gone all in and put an Echo in every room. Prime video is extremely popular, they produce a lot of Indian content and license a lot of regional stuff too. They even telecast a live cricket series recently. They've even raised prices for Prime subscription, which indicates that they're confident people will pay more for what they're offering. Hardly the signs of "scaling back". Personally, I feel the article is not well informed. For example it makes the assertion that Amazon is lagging Flipkart. It is absolutely not. Flipkart is a joke. Flipkart sells a lot of exclusive mobile phones on razor thin margins (maybe even net loss), and since phones are relatively high value items the GMV turns out to be higher than Amazon's. Amazon doesn't offer deep discounts on phones, which is fine IMO. GMV is not everything. Similarly, TFA references Amazon’s "shutdown of multiple services". 1. Amazon Distribution - this was a very small scale operation, maybe the pilot just didn't work out. This was operating in 3 districts in the country (we have 766 districts). 2. Food delivery - this is a tough nut to crack in India, and Amazon was incredibly late to the game. Even established players (Zomato, Swiggy) are always struggling. People simply aren't ready to pay a substantial portion of the bill for delivery in India. This may well turn out to be a wise decision in the long-term. There might be a long struggle and no big profits in this game. 3. Online learning platform - I have no idea why Amazon thought this was an appropriate market for them. They were very late in this too. The competition is cut-throat, and it is a really unique market. I don't think they would have been able to make a space for themselves here. On the other hand, Amazon launched its second AWS region in India and pledged to invest $4.4 billion in its cloud operations in the country by 2030. Hardly a "scaling back".[1] [1] - https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/27/amazon-shutting-down-wholesale-distribution-in-third-business-exit-in-india/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/27/amazon-shutting-down-whole...

bharathyes 4y ago
the article is based on Amazons document and not based on subjective personal experiences. "amazon lagging behind flipkart" comment was in regards to market penetration in smaller towns. Given that all the gier 1 cities are well covered by the tech giants the next market to tap into would be the small cities and towns. the arsicle indicates thats where amazon it falling behind flipkart in making progress.

crossroadsguy 4y ago

As an urban Amazon India user I can say few things: - Amazon is increasingly becoming unusable. I feel I am browsing spam. And page over page it feels spam hasn’t ended. It doesn’t feel like a shopping experience at all. - I really can’t trust its reviews anymore. Just can’t. It’s gone. Besides it has some weird logic of placing items. Read again — spam! - In fact a lot that I would buy from Amazon I buy in stores or from those instant delivery apps like BlinkIt, Zepto (5-15 min kinda delivery) - Amazon’s Prime delivery is a joke now. There are very very few products that I can get in 1 day or the next day. - However Flipkart customer support is pathetic. So much that I really dread buying anything there. I buy something on it maybe once in years. But most folks go for reach and price. Customer service is the only reason I still tolerate rest of Amazon.in - My folks in the village almost always use Flipkart. Some might not have heard of Amazon. So of this huge arse market — Amazon is alienating its target audience and has never even touched the rest.

nerdbert 4y ago
Amazon feels like spam here in Europe too. Sketchy-looking products from weird brands that I have no faith in. A simple search fails to turn up items matching the keywords I entered (even though those items do exist in their catalog) and instead gives me a dumpsterload of garbage results. Increasingly Amazon is my absolute last resort.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rcme 4y ago
  I have the same experience. I still prefer ordering from Amazon due to the shipping, but I find my self needing to spend more and more time off Amazon looking for an adequate product because Amazon’s search has been taken over my cheap Chinese crap from sellers with names like UDIAMI. I wish they had an option to filter things like that.
unmole 4y ago
Counterpoint from another urban Amazon India user: - Amazon is still the first place I look at when I want to buy something - While the availability of next day delivery has reduced, shipping times are still decent and more importantly reliable - Amazon Fresh has a much better selection than any instant delivery app and I can usually get same day delivery - Cities account for the overwhelming majority of discretionary spending suited for e-commerce. I am not convinced servicing most small towns in India is profitable. The so called huge market is not something you can make money from.

WeylandYutani 4y ago

IMO whenever Amazon is actually faced with competition THAT KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING they fail. In the Netherlands someone copied Amazon 20 years ago and by the time the real Amazon showed up they didn't really bother to invest. And we all know how they got decimated in China.

sagaro 4y ago
This is very true. Amazon wouldn't enter South Korea because there is this company called Coupang, which does everything that Amazon does (eCommerce, video streaming, food delivery etc )

vivegi 4y ago

There is an initiative called ONDC [1] that is aiming to bring to e-commerce in India the same kind of network based approach that the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) did for payments. ONDC's charter is quite ambitious and it is trying to become the network for ecommerce in the country. While it is absolutely not a contender to the established ecommerce players in terms of reach, spread, depth etc., yet, it could be a gamechanger if it gets adopted far and wide. I don't for a moment claim this is perhaps the cause for Amazon to scale down ops in India. Just pointing a broader trend and strategic threat. [1]: https://ondc.org/ https://ondc.org/