Amazon announced it plans to invest US $1 billion to digitally enable micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and traders across India, including manufacturers, resellers, local offline shops and brands. The company aims to digitize 10 million MSMEs with this investment, helping Indian businesses grow by selling online worldwide and enabling US $10B in cumulative exports by 2025.
As part of this effort, Amazon will establish 100 Digital Haats in cities and villages throughout India. Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos announced the plan in front of thousands of MSMEs at the inaugural Amazon SMBhav Summit in New Delhi recently.
Today, there are more than 550,000 sellers on the Amazon India market place and more than 60,000 Indian manufacturers and brands are exporting their “Make in India” products to customers worldwide on Amazon.
The Digital Haats will provide services like e-commerce onboarding, imaging and cataloging, warehouse space, logistics, digital marketing, and compliance. Digital Haats will be in local neighborhoods and available to MSMEs irrespective of their association with Amazon.
Soon after Jeff Bezos announced that his Amazon would invest I billion USD to help digitize MSMEs in India, Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said that this investment is not doing India a great favor. He said “…They may have put in a billion dollars, but then, if they make a loss of a billion dollars every year, then they jolly well have to finance that billion dollars. So, it’s not as if they are doing a great favour to India when they invest a billion dollars,”