Global online retailer Amazon will begin manufacturing its hardware devices in India as the company reiterated its commitment to the Indian government’s “make in India” initiative towards an Atmanirbhar Bharat.
Amazon will start manufacturing its Fire TV Stick devices in Chennai through a partnership with contract manufacturer Foxconn later this year.
The company said under the device manufacturing programme, it will be able to produce hundreds of thousands of Fire TV Stick devices every year, catering to the demands of customers in India with plans to scale capacity depending on the domestic demand.
In a blog post, Amazon India head Amit Agarwal said, “Amazon is committed to partner with the Indian government to advance the vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat….Today, we are delighted to announce Amazon’s first manufacturing line in India to produce hundreds of thousands of Fire TV Stick devices every year catering to the demands of the Indian customers. This further reiterates our commitment to the Government of India’s ‘Make in India’ initiative.”
The Amazon India country head also briefed Union Minister for Communications, Electronics & Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad on details of the initiative.
On the development, the minister said, “India is an attractive investment destination and is poised to become a major player in the global supply chain in the electronics and IT products industry. Our government’s decision to launch a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme has received tremendous response globally.”
“We welcome Amazon’s decision to set up a manufacturing line in Chennai, as it will enhance domestic production capacities and create jobs as well. This will further our mission of creating an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, which is digitally empowered,” the minister said.
Amazon had earlier committed $1 billion to digitise 10 million small and medium businesses in India to enable $10 billion in cumulative exports and create an additional one million jobs by 2025.
In 2020 Amazon announced the ‘Local Shops on Amazon’, a programme that helps retailers and local shops be aatmanirbhar, and benefit from selling online.
It has over 22,000 neighborhood stores registered across the country gathering additional footfalls through their online presence and furthering their earning potential by acting as pickup points, logistics partners, and experience centres for ecommerce, the blog post said.
