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Amazon partners with Foxconn arm to manufacture devices in India

By Binu Paul

  • 16 Feb 2021
Amazon partners with Foxconn arm to manufacture devices in India
Credit: Reuters

Ecommerce marketplace Amazon is set to start its first device manufacturing line in India later this year. 

The Indian arm of the Seattle, Washington headquartered retail giant has partnered with contract manufacturer Cloud Network Technology, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based electronics firm Foxconn, to begin production of Amazon Fire TV Stick devices in Chennai.

The device manufacturing facility will be able to produce “hundreds of thousands of Fire TV Stick devices every year,” the company said in a statement. Amazon said it will evaluate scaling capacity to additional cities depending on the domestic demand.

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“Amazon is committed to partner with the Indian government to advance the vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. We have pledged to invest $1 billion to digitize 10 million small and medium businesses, help Indian businesses sell worldwide thereby enabling $10 billion in cumulative exports, and create an additional 1 million jobs by 2025,” Amit Agarwal, global SVP and country leader for Amazon India, said.

In February last year, Amazon infused $310 million through an equity issue in Amazon Seller Services, which acts as a marketplace for sellers on-boarded on its ecommerce platform. In the same month, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos announced a $1 billion investment outlay to increase the number of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) on its platform to one crore from the current 5.5 lakh sellers, and create employment for around one crore Indians.

The launch of the manufacturing unit comes amid an intensifying legal battle with Future Retail. Amazon has filed a petition in Supreme Court against the ruling of a division bench of the Delhi High Court that lifted an earlier order on the Rs 24,713 crore Future Group-Reliance Retail deal.  

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Amazon, which is a minority shareholder in Future Coupons through its investment made in August 2019, has approached Singapore International Arbitration Centre asking for redressal. 

The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) on January 6 had announced the formation of a three member arbitration panel headed by justice Michael Hwang, former judicial commissioner of the Supreme Court of Singapore to pronounce the final verdict on the ongoing tussle between Amazon and Kishore Biyani-led Future Retail for its sale to Reliance Industries.

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