US-based online retailer Amazon has pumped in a further Rs 700 crore into its Indian digital payments business Amazon Pay, ahead of the festive season when it expects to dole out large cashbacks in order to grow its customer base.
The bulk of its latest infusion comes via Amazon Corporate Holdings, the Singapore-based parent entity for all of the US tech giant’s e-commerce units in India, along with a token investment from Mauritius-based Amazon.com. Inc Ltd, according to regulatory documents sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler.
News portal Entrackr was the first to report the development on Thursday.
The fresh funding also marks Amazon’s second investment into Amazon Pay this year, after the company pumped in Rs 1,355 crore in January.
So far, the company has raised a little over Rs 5,000 crore since inception in 2016 and has been making a couple of investments each year.
Amazon Pay had earlier this week increased its authorised share capital to Rs 16,000 crore from Rs 6,000 crore, hinting that the company could possibly make a large investment of a few thousand crores in the unit as it looks at scaling up and better competing with rivals Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm.
The company is also speeding up the launch of new features as consumers across the country favour online shopping, fearing to step out into stores due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Customers have also been paying digitally even when they do step out.
Amazon Pay recently launched credit card bill payments and a train ticket booking service in partnership with IRCTC.
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