Amazon looking for stable ecommerce policy in India

Seattle-headquartered ecommerce giant Amazon is hopeful of a stable ecommerce policy to be announced by the Indian government. 

“Our engagement with the Indian government makes us optimistic about partnering and collaborating to seek a stable predictable policy that allows us to continue investing in our technology and infrastructure,” Brian Olsavsky, chief financial officer, Amazon, said during its quarterly earnings call today.

It will also help Amazon to create jobs and scale local businesses, Olsavsky added.

Amazon and Walmart-backed Flipkart were hauled up during a stakeholder meeting on draft national ecommerce policy for flouting foreign direct investment (FDI) norms in ecommerce marketplaces.

The companies were asked to present their business model and other data to a committee formed by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade (DPIIT) and representatives from other government departments.

Q2 sales up 20% to $63 bn

Amazon reported a 20% increase in net sales to $63.4 billion for the second quarter of 2019 over $52.9 billion in the corresponding quarter of fiscal 2018. 

Net sales for the international business increased by 8.8% to $16.19 billion for the quarter. 

The net income increased only marginally to $2.6 billion from  $2.5 billion in the second quarter of 2018. 

Amazon Web Services (AWS), the company’s computing services arm, reported a 37% increase in sales at $8.4 billion. AWS accounted for 13% of Amazon’s revenues for the quarter. Since its launch in 2016, the number of databases migrated to AWS using the AWS Database Migration Services had increased to over 150,000, the company said in a statement.