MUMBAI: Amazon’s quick commerce business has now crossed $1 billion in gross annualised sales in India over the past three-month period and has caught up with competition to become one of the top three market players in Delhi and Bengaluru, despite a late entry into the instant delivery space, a top company executive said.In an interview, Amazon’s India country manager Samir Kumar said the growth has come on the back of orders doubling every quarter. A big push has also come from Prime customers, who end up shopping about three times more on Amazon Now. “Prime is a big driver for our flywheel but even non-prime customers are coming in quite a good number. As we start reaching smaller cities, we are also seeing a very, very healthy growth in non-Prime customers. They are also converting to Prime,” Kumar said.Gross annualised sales is typically calculated by taking the total gross sales for a month or a quarter and multiplying it to project a full 12-month period. It reflects the value of orders placed minus discounts, cancellations and excluding GST.Amazon Now officially started operations in March quarter last year, about four months after launch of Flipkart’s Minutes and having ceded much of the market share to Eternal’s Blinkit, Swiggy’s Instamart and Zepto. In what seems as a clear mandate from Amazon’s Seattle headquarters to scale up Now’s execution on ground here, the firm’s top boss Andy Jassy on a visit to India earlier this year said Now will expand to over 300 cities and build the largest delivery-in-minutes network. It was Jassy’s first India tour since assuming office in 2021. By Diwali, Now will be scaled to 100 cities and to 1,000 dark stores by year-end. Sources said Now’s orders stand at about 700,000 per day. In all, it has gained market share of about 10% by orders and about 14% by value.“Our growth engine is still going to be a lot more penetrating into smaller cities and towns,” Kumar said. About 70% of Amazon’s (overall) customers come from smaller cities. The company has taken Now to cities such as Udupi, Warangal, Guntur and plans are afoot to launch it in places like Kapurthala and Gurdaspur going ahead. Now will have a play across both mass and premium price points and Kumar’s target is to widen the selection of products and categories on the platform. “Our focus will be on whether we can serve a customer need in minutes in a sustainable and safe way,” Kumar said.
