Amazon India sees 105% growth in revenue, Seller Services end up with 41%

Amazon announced on Wednesday that it has witnessed over 105% growth in revenues in India in the fiscal year 2017.

The report was first published in The Economic Times.

However, filings with the Registrar of Companies Amazon revealed that Amazon Seller Services, which earns through commissions, advertisements and shipping fees, registered a growth of 41% in FY17 with a revenue of Rs 3,128 crore.

Amazon India made a large percentage of revenue through the earnings from its parent company, which gained by way of advertising fees, other related-party transactions, and royalty for selling Amazon brands such as Kindle.

"Comparing like to like, the Amazon Marketplace revenue in India grew by 105% for the year ending March 31, 2017. The Annual Returns filings include other line items," said an Amazon spokeswoman talking to ET.

Experts feel that the company would have witnessed a better growth through the Web marketplace had there not been a policy change on discounting. It also suffered the impact of de-monetisation after November.

They said that the growth rate slowed after a government note restricted the ability of e-commerce companies to offer deep discounts, perceived as distorting the pricing structure in the retailing industry. Demonetisation also affected sales as about 60% of e-commerce transactions are routed through the cash-on delivery mode.

The industry experts believe that other e-commerce marketplaces would also witness a slower growth in FY17 as online sales for smartphones and electronics showed a little growth in 2016 after a three-year surge.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) rules on marketplaces also meant reduced dependence on Amazon’s largest seller Cloudtail, which saw a 24% jump during FY17, compared with more than four-fold gains a year ago.

But the Seattle-based parent has invested aggressively over the past year. This month, Amazon invested $450 million (Rs 2,900 crore) into Amazon Seller Service. This is the largest capital infusion into its marketplace arm ever in a year. With this, the total investment in its Indian unit reaches $4 billion (Rs 26,180 crore).

Besides, internationally, Amazon suffered an overall loss of $936 million in the third quarter of this year. The figure was as high as 73 per cent from the September quarter of 2016, when it showed the loss of $541 million.

Besides, in the past nine months, the online retailer has suffered a loss of $2.1 billion, which has grown nearly threefold from $796 million in the same period last year.