Amazon says its India business is worst affected by virus outbreak

BENGALURU: Amazon.com Inc. said its India operations were the worst affected by the covid-19 pandemic as the government ordered the company to halt sales of almost all items but groceries during the 40-day lockdown.

“I think the biggest impact internationally has been in India where, of course, similar to all companies, we’re now only fulfilling essential goods such as grocery; so that’s cut back a lot on our offering and we will further expand when the Indian government announces that we’re allowed to resume operations. So we’re in a bit of a holding pattern, except for grocery in India,” said Brian T Olsavsky, senior vicepresident and chief financial officer, in an earnings call.

In India, e-commerce firms such as Amazon and Walmartowned Flipkart have been allowed to deliver essential goods during the lockdown that is set to end on Sunday.

These items form a small part of their overall business, which relies heavily on the sale of electronic goods, mobile phones and fashion products. Olsavsky said the covid-19 crisis has played out differently in countries but that Amazon has also noticed a lot of consistency in the types of products that people are buying with the stay-at-home restrictions.

In the earnings call, Olsavsky also said that while Amazon generally has experience in getting ready for a spike in demand for known events such as the holiday season and Prime Day, the covid crisis allowed for no preparation.

Responding to the health crisis, Amazon has established rigorous safety and cleaning protocols, including maintaining sixfoot social distancing, and procuring 100 million masks, and tens of millions of gloves, wipes and other cleaning supplies to prevent contagion.

“We began requiring temperature checks across our operations network, in our Whole Foods stores (in the US) we added plexiglass barriers between cashiers and customers and reserved special hours for senior customers to shop. We temporarily raised wages and overtime premiums, and we founded a new Amazon Relief Fund,” said Olsavsky.