Diwali sales going well, says Amazon as retail giant clocks ‘very strong’ Prime Day numbers

Amazon on Thursday said its ongoing festive sale in India is faring well. Speaking at the firm’s July-September quarter earnings call, CFO Brian Olsavsky said: “…including the international segment of course is India where we’ve had a very strong Prime Day and Diwali is off to a good start.”

The Seattle-based company, that counts India as one of its biggest markets, launched a month-long annual festive sale beginning October 17.

Amazon and Walmart-backed Flipkart, that jointly lead the Indian e-commerce space, have seen a rush of new customers as the pandemic nudged shoppers to shift online. Amazon broadened its reach and signed up new Prime members from places like Tawang, Mokokchung and Pudukkottai.

Analysts at Forrester Research said the company’s strategy behind running a month-long sale is to get its Prime members make purchases across more categories and to buy more frequently.

Analysts at consulting firm RedSeer estimate e-commerce companies to have sold goods worth $4.1 billion in the first leg (October 15-21) of the festive sale, up 55% over the previous year. The first phase drives nearly 75% of the purchases.

“Prime members continue to shop with greater frequency and across more categories than before the pandemic began. They continue to expand their usage of Prime’s digital benefits including Prime Video,” Olsavsky said.

Internationally, the number of Prime members who stream Prime Video grew by more than 80% year-on-year in Q3 2020 and international customers more than doubled the hours of content they watch on Prime Video against last year, the CFO said.

“….we’re still investing ahead of the US in a lot of dimensions internationally things like Prime benefits, things like the devices, things like international expansions,” Olsavsky added.

To tackle the surge in order volumes, Amazon India announced the addition of 10 new fulfillment centers (FC) besides expanding its delivery network. The company also ramped up hiring in the country, adding over 100,000 temporary job roles across delivery, fulfilment and customer service departments.

Net sales from the international segment increased to $25.17 billion in Q3 2020 compared with $18.34 billion in Q3 2019. The segment posted profits of $407 million during the quarter compared to losses of $386 million posted in the year-ago period.