Even as e-commerce biggies Reliance Retail and Jio Mart, and Flipkart are getting fresh infusion of funds to gear up for the festival season in India, their main rival Amazon is also girding up its loin for the same. Amazon.com Inc has invested Rs 700 crore ($95.51 million) in its Indian payments unit.
The new round of funding is Amazon’s second investment into Amazon Pay this year, after the company pumped in Rs 1,355 crore in January.
Amazon kicks off its festive season sales from October 17, and has been trying to encourage payments through Amazon Pay with cashbacks and other rewards.
The month-long sale will help small businesses and sellers to reach more customers across the country thereby giving more time and opportunity to both the consumers and sellers on the platform.
Amazon Pay rolling out new features
Amazon Pay had recently increased its authorised share capital to Rs 16,000 crore from Rs 6,000 crore. This was a clear indication that company was set for a large investment as it was preparing itself to take on its rivals like Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm
Amazon Pay is also said to be speeding up the launch of new features.
Amazon Pay has launched credit card bill payments and a train ticket booking service in partnership with IRCTC.
Amazon needs fresh funds as its rivals are doing the same.
Reliance Retail has been getting big-ticket investors.
The other biggie Flipkart is also following the same strategy. The gaming and social media biggie Tencent has put in $62.8 million into Flipkart’s $1.2 billion investment round.
This investment is believed to be a part of Flipkart’s $1.2 billion round that was led by Walmart in July.