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(Bloomberg) – Amazon.com Inc. today opened its largest campus building in the city of Hyderabad, in southern India, as it prepares for a furious expansion and at battle with Nemesis Walmart Inc. on one of the most dynamic retail markets.
The company, headquartered in Seattle, takes an ambitious step forward in India, the last major retail frontier remaining primarily dependent on small neighborhood stores and mainstream stores. "E-commerce is so small in India compared to total consumption, less than 3%," said Amit Agarwal, Amazon's national manager for India.
This largely untapped country is essential to Amazon and Walmart's plans for global domination, the last of which spent $ 16 billion last year to buy India's largest startup, Flipkart Online Services Pvt. The founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has pledged up to $ 5.5 billion for his operations in India.
Built in Hyderabad in three years, the new campus is Amazon's first building outside the United States. It covers 1.8 million square feet of office space, about 50 times more than the Taj Mahal mausoleum. It will accommodate 15,000 workers. "The largest buildings in Seattle are home to approximately 5,000 employees," said John Schoettler, vice president of Amazon Global Real Estate and Facilities. He said the campus was the largest of Amazon's in the world, but that he still had plenty of room to grow.
Agarwal added, "This facility will build services around the world, citing examples such as 'AWS, Kindle, Alexa, Amazon.in and Amazon Home Services, which' innovate in home removal and electronic repair ".
In parallel with the inauguration of its new Indian hub, Amazon is investing on other fronts within the country. He is in negotiation to acquire a 10% stake in one of the largest retailers of brick and mortar in India, Future Retail, said people familiar with the subject. Local media also indicated that Amazon wanted to add food supplies to its Indian repertoire and was negotiating with many food companies to revive this sector of activity.
Amazon started its retail operations in India in 2013 and has since added several services to boost sales, including an expansion in the production of Bollywood originals to bolster its Prime Video loyalty program in this great amateur country of movies. The number of major members in India has doubled in the last 18 months, according to Agarwal, and it still finds a "phenomenal growth".
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