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Raghavendra
Kamath, Business Standard
Mumbai, 25 January 2017
To expand its storage capacity in India, Amazon
had opened its largest Fulfilment Centre in Sonipat, Haryana.
US-based
e-commerce giant Amazon took about a million square feet of office
spaces on lease last year, making it equal to what it took between 2008
and 2015 in the country.
Founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos
said last year that it would invest another $3 billion in India, amid
intense competition in the e-commerce space.
Much of the leased
space could be used for seller and development services, besides a
30,000-sq ft building in Bandra Kurla Complex for its India
headquarters.
According to Propstack, a data analytics firm for
commercial property transactions, various Amazon entities have leased
about 1.3 million sq ft since 2008.
Amazon launched its online
marketplace in India in 2013 but had been present in the country for
eight years for research and development services.
An Amazon India spokesperson said: "As a policy, we do not comment on
what we may or may not do in the future."
Properly consultant Colliers International elaborated on the latest
activity by Amazon as the year closed
— 100,000 sq ft in the Mohan Co-operative area in Delhi, 150,000 sq ft
in Ambience Corporate Tower 2 in Gurgaon and 300,000 sq ft in World
Trade Tower Noida.
Before that, through 2016, it leased 90,000
sq ft at Ambience Corporate Tower II NH8 in Gurgaon and 350,000 sq ft
at Mindspace, Madhapur, in Hyderabad.
Rival Flipkart, which
operates through Flipkart India, Flipkart Internet and Flipkart Payment
Gateway, recently took 600,000-sq ft office space in an Embassy group
project in Bengaluru.
"Amazon
has been investing systematically in expanding its product portfolio,
bringing Indian merchants on to their Indian and global platform, and
expanding its delivery infrastructure," said Devangshu Dutta, chief
executive officer at retail consultancy Third Eyesight.
Dutta
said with its plans to grow private labels and the current e-commerce
foreign direct investment regulations which require companies to
increase the share of unrelated merchants, the Bezos-led company
requires significant organisational capacity and hence is growing
office spaces.
Added Raja
Seetharaman, director at PropStack, "Amazon is going 'all out' in the
battle for e-commerce market share in India. They realise that India
would be their next biggest market outside the US. With a median age of
27 and growth rate of 6.5-7 per cent, Amazon is willing to invest
'whatever it takes' to win."
The company's long-term
investments, along with futuristic technology like drone deliveries,
which it is already piloting in the US, indicate that Amazon is well
positioned to be a leader in the e-commerce sector, Seetharaman said.
LEASE DEALS
IN 2016
- Leases 100,000 sq ft in Mohan Co-operative Area
in Delhi
- Takes 150,000 sq ft in Ambience Corporate Tower
2 in Gurgaon
- Takes 300,000 sq ft in World Trade Tower in
Noida
- Takes 90,000 sq ft at Ambience Corporate Tower
II NH8 in Gurgaon
- Takes 30,000 sq ft in BKC in Mumbai
- Takes 350,000 sq ft at Mindspace, Madhapur in
Hyderabad
Source:
Colliers International
(Published
in Business Standard)
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