Online retail giant Amazon on Friday blamed a late Diwali for a significant slowdown in its international business growth, Mint reported. The Seattle-based company’s international sales grew at just 13% to $15.5 billion (Rs 1.13 lakh crore), compared to 29% a year ago. The company, however, narrowed the losses from its international business.
The company, at a post-earnings conference call with investors, said it expects international sales to get a boost in the December quarter. “There’s also material change in the Diwali calendar in India,” said the company’s Chief Financial Officer Brian T Olsavsky. “About half of our Diwali sales last year were in Q3. This year they will be fully in Q4. So those are a couple of factors that hit the international growth area in particular.”
The decline has brought into focus the Indian market’s importance to the company. It has already invested more than $1 billion (Rs 7,312 crore) this year in multiple tranches, Bloomberg reported. The company has pumped in $5 billion (Rs 36,562 crore) in India, and is expected to invest even more.
Amazon is locked in a battle with Walmart, which acquired a 77% stake in Flipkart in August, for a domination of the Indian market. Both Flipkart and Amazon have performed well in the first leg of the Diwali sale, Mint reported, with the Jeff Bezos-led company closing the gap on the Indian retailer, which usually dominates the sales in this period.
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