Amazon Food, a business the company was trialing in the southern Indian city of Bengaluru, would be discontinued, it said.
"As part of our annual operating planning review process, we have made the decision to discontinue Amazon Food," a company spokesperson told Reuters.
We don't take these decisions lightly. We are discontinuing these programs in a phased manner to take care of current customers and partners."
The Economic Times earlier reported that the business would be discontinued from Dec. 29 onwards, citing a communication from the company to its restaurant partners.
On Thursday, Amazon said it was shutting down the Amazon Academy platform in India that was launched early last year amid a boom in virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
An uncertain macroeconomic environment is making the e-commerce giant review its global workforce, as the company plans to lay off around 10,000 employees in corporate and technology roles, Reuters reported last week.
“We don’t take these decisions lightly. We are discontinuing this programme in a phased manner to take care of current customers and partners and we are supporting our affected employees during this transition,” it said.
It will continue to invest in its core ecommerce business in categories such as grocery, smartphones and consumer electronics, fashion and beauty, and in Amazon Business, the company added.
Business daily Business Standard was the first to report the development on Monday.
ET reported on November 26 that Amazon India had decided to shut its food delivery business Amazon Foods by the end of the year. It is also shutting down its edtech business, Amazon Academy
The decisions come at a time when the internet retail giant is facing challenges at a global level as the ongoing economic slowdown and receding pandemic have hit its ecommerce business. The company is laying off over 10,000 workers globally and hundreds of employees have been affected in India, ET reported on November 16.
In September, research firm Bernstein published a report that was critical of Amazon India, saying that the company’s performance in the country was “mixed”, with continued losses despite pumping in $6.5 billion.
While the Amazon India marketplace, Amazon Seller Services, was able to cut losses by almost 23% to Rs 3,649 crore in FY22, losses at its other two businesses – payments and logistics – have widened.
The Tata Group has been looking to leverage the geopolitical backlash against China and woo Apple and other smartphone companies to India for some time. Now, sources tell us the conglomerate is eyeing the Karnataka plant of Taiwan’s Wistron Corp, one of the top three iPhone manufacturers in India.
The Tata Group has begun talks with Taipei’s Wistron Corp, one of the top three Apple vendors in India, to buy its sole manufacturing facility in Karnataka for Rs 4,000-5,000 crore, people familiar with the discussions told us.
The transaction, if successful, will help the conglomerate ramp up the manufacturing capabilities of Tata Electronics Pvt Ltd (TEPL) in precision engineering.
Catch up quick: TEPL is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Sons. It was set up to lead the group’s ambitions to become a mobile phone and component contract manufacturer at scale after group chairman N Chandrasekaran sought to leverage the geopolitical backlash against China and woo smartphone companies like Apple to India.
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