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Amazon set to open cutting-edge fulfillment centre in Abu Dhabi

Amazon set to open cutting-edge fulfillment centre in Abu Dhabi

As part of the Abu Dhabi Investment Office’s (ADIO) programme to attract investment, Abu Dhabi will become home to Amazon’s most technologically advanced fulfillment centre in the region…reports Asian Lite News

Expected to be launched by 2024, the new fulfillment centre comes as part of a wider collaboration between Amazon and ADIO which will also unlock job opportunities over the coming years, as well as provide support to help entrepreneurs, startups and small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) thrive in the digital economy.

Amazon set to open cutting-edge fulfillment centre in Abu Dhabi

Mohammed Ali Al Shorafa, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development, said, “Abu Dhabi has established itself as the region’s innovation hub and as a nexus for pioneering technology and impactful solutions. The addition of Amazon’s new fulfillment centre further boosts the emirate’s ecosystem by introducing new capabilities and an enhanced infrastructure that deliver benefits to other businesses. As part of our commitment to creating opportunities for the private sector, ADIO will partner with and support innovation-driven companies to ensure their growth and success in Abu Dhabi.”

Russell Grandinetti, Senior Vice President, International Consumer, Amazon, said, “Driven by customer-obsession, innovation and long-term thinking, we are very proud to be working alongside the UAE leadership as we contribute to the nation’s accelerating digital economy and ambitious growth agenda. We look forward to partnering with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office to bring Amazon’s advanced logistics, technology innovations, sustainability initiatives and decades of expertise to the area.”

Following its successful and ongoing collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to launch cloud data centres in the UAE, ADIO continues to partner with Amazon to advance innovative and technological solutions in Abu Dhabi.

ALSO READ: Abu Dhabi Smart City Summit begins today

Ronaldo Mouchawar, Vice President of Amazon Middle East and North Africa (MENA), said, “This new expansion helps us increase our delivery capabilities and speed, and support a wide range of sellers who offer a rich selection to our customers. We are well-positioned to accelerate their entrepreneurial journey and aspire to help our independent partners grow to their full potential by providing them with logistics, programmes and resources to seamlessly scale their businesses online.”

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Amazon to stop accepting UK-issued Visa credit cards

An Amazon spokesperson said the dispute was to do with “pretty egregious” price rises from Visa over a number of years with no additional value to its service…reports Asian Lite News.

Due to high credit card transaction fees, tech giant Amazon will stop accepting Visa credit cards in the UK from 19th January.

According to the BBC, it said the move was due to high credit card transaction fees but said Visa debit cards would still be accepted.

Amazon said that the cost of accepting card payments continues to be an obstacle for businesses striving to provide the best prices for customers.

The online retailer said costs should be going down over time due to advances in technology, “but instead they continue to stay high or even rise”.

An Amazon spokesperson said the dispute was to do with “pretty egregious” price rises from Visa over a number of years with no additional value to its service.

Meanwhile, Visa said in a statement it was “very disappointed that Amazon is threatening to restrict consumer choice in the future. When consumer choice is limited, nobody wins”.

It said it had “a long-standing relationship with Amazon” and that it was trying to resolve the situation so customers would be able to use Visa credit cards with Amazon UK.

Amazon declined to say how much Visa charges to process transactions the retailer made on credit cards.

ALSO READ-MPs demand answers over spy agencies’ deal with Amazon

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Amazon spends $1.2 bn as legal fees in India

A legal expert also pointed out that most of the expenses shown as legal fees may not actually be going towards compliance and litigations but also towards facilitating operations in the country…reports Asian Lite News.

The US-based company Amazon Inc’s India operations has spent a staggering over $1.2 billion in legal expenses in the last two years to maintain its presence and relevance in one the largest markets globally.

As per the official data from the public account filings made by the company in India, all of Amazon’s India focused companies together have spent Rs 8,546 crore as legal fees in the financial years 2018-19 and 2019-20. This is almost a fifth or 20 per cent of its two-year revenue of Rs 42,085 crore.

“Despite India moving high on ease of doing business, it continues to be a highly regulated market and compliance to regulations has its own costs. But Amazon is not the only one having high legal expenses, it’s competitors Flipkart may be having similar level of expenses and so are several large corporations,” said an industry expert asking not to be named due to his association with e-commerce companies.

A legal expert also pointed out that most of the expenses shown as legal fees may not actually be going towards compliance and litigations but also towards facilitating operations in the country.

An Amazon India spokesperson did not offer any comments on the issue. “We do not have any comments to offer on this as of now,” an email from the company said.

A report by Morning Context has said that Amazon has launched a probe after a whistleblower raised a complaint of the company’s legal representative having a role in bribing Indian officials. While the company has not commented on this specific allegation, it has said that action is taken promptly for all improper actions.

While the role of the legal representatives has been highlighted in the report, the focus has come back on vast expenses Amazon makes as legal fees.

Amongst the highest legal fees reported are two entities of e-commerce player’s Indian companies — Amazon India Ltd (holding company) and Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd. — the two together spent close to Rs 8,000 crore as legal fees in the past two financial years (FY19 and FY20).

The other entities of Amazon in India — Amazon Retail India, Amazon Transportation Services, Amazon Wholesale and Amazon Internet Services — also have high levels of legal charges commensurate with their size.

ALSO READ-EU slaps Amazon with record data privacy fine

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EU slaps Amazon with record data privacy fine


Under Andy Jassy, who is now Amazon CEO, the revenue growth accelerated across a broad range of customers…reports Asian Lite News

European Union (EU) has slapped Amazon.com Inc with a record $886.6 million (746 million euros) fine for processing personal data in violation of the bloc’s GDPR rules.

According to media reports, the Luxembourg National Commission for Data Protection (CNPD) imposed the fine on Amazon in a July 16 decision, the company disclosed in a regulatory filing on Friday.

A spokesperson said the company will appeal the fine. The e-commerce giant said in the filing it believed CNPD’s decision was without merit, media reported.

Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is now a $59 billion annualised run rate business, up from $43 billion at this time last year, its parent company Amazon has said.

Under Andy Jassy, who is now Amazon CEO, the revenue growth accelerated across a broad range of customers.

“We see strong growth in enterprises, governments, educational and research institutions and our start-up and digital native customers,” said Brian T Olsavsky, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Amazon.

“If you look at the last quarter AWS added more revenue quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year than any quarter in our history,” Olsavsky told analysts during the company’s Q2 earnings call on Thursday.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) grew its revenue 37 per cent at $14.81 billion in the second quarter, surpassing $14.2 billion as estimated by analysts.

“AWS customers recognise that the move to the cloud is very positive for their businesses in the medium and long-term. Disruptive economic events like COVID have caused many people to step back and think about how they want to change strategically,” said Olsavsky.

AWS plans to open infrastructure regions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the first half of 2022 and Israel in the first half of 2023.

Globally, AWS has 81 Availability Zones across 25 geographic Regions, with plans to launch 21 more Availability Zones and seven more AWS Regions.

“AWS has helped so many businesses and governments maintain business continuity, and we’ve seen AWS growth reaccelerate as more companies bring forward plans to transform their businesses and move to the cloud,” said Jassy.

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UK opens probe into Amazon, Google

But, the two Big Tech rivals have also faced regulatory blowback over their alleged abuses of power…reports Asian Lite News.

After opening cases against Facebook and Google, the UK’s competition regulator Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a fresh probe into Amazon and Google to assess if they are protecting shoppers from fake reviews.

The move follows the CMA’s initiation of an inquiry last May that raised concerns over the companies’ handling of fake or misleading reviews on their respective sites, Engadget reported.

At the time, the regulator did not specify which websites it was investigating. Instead, it said that it was looking into issues including suspicious behaviour, such as a single user posting multiple reviews for an unlikely range of products or services.

The CMA also examined if businesses were combining reviews for products to manipulate their ranking and how sites were dealing with the shady practice of remuneration for reviews.

This type of behaviour is illegal under UK consumer protection law, with the CMA responsible for enforcing the rules, the report said.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai. (File Photo: IANS)

Amazon and Google respectively wield enormous power over e-commerce and online search. Last year, Amazon’s annual net sales grew 38 per cent to $386 billion as people took to shopping online during the pandemic.

While Google majorly revamped its Shopping feature in 2019 with new additions including price tracking and visual search, it followed that by recently making its Shopping search listings mostly free for merchants.

But, the two Big Tech rivals have also faced regulatory blowback over their alleged abuses of power.

As part of an antitrust ruling, the EU handed Google a $2.7 billion fine in 2017 for giving prominence to its own shopping comparison service in results while downgrading rivals. EU regulators are also currently probing Amazon’s use of third-party seller data to boost its own products.

As part of a landmark case in 2019, the US Federal Trade Commission successfully secured a settlement from Cure Encapsulations, Inc over its payments to a third-party website to write five-star Amazon reviews for a weight-loss supplement.

ALSO READ-Amazon gives 10,000 oxygen concentrators to India

READ MORE-Amazon gives 100 ICU ventilators to India

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UK to probe Apple, Google’s ‘effective duopoly’

Referring to the existing App Store investigation, he added that the CMA had “already uncovered some worrying trends,” and that, “consumers and businesses could be harmed if they go unchecked.”..reports Asian Lite News.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that it will examine if Apple and Google constitute a duopoly on mobile devices given their control over app stores.

Alongside its existing examination of Apple over the App Store, the CMA has begun investigating whether the dominant iOS and Android platforms represent unfair competition, AppleInsider reported on Tuesday.

“Apple and Google control the major gateways through which people download apps or browse the web on their mobiles — whether they want to shop, play games, stream music or watch TV,” CMA Chief Executive Andrea Coscelli was quoted as saying.

“We’re looking into whether this could be creating problems for consumers and the businesses that want to reach people through their phones,” he said.

Referring to the existing App Store investigation, he added that the CMA had “already uncovered some worrying trends,” and that, “consumers and businesses could be harmed if they go unchecked.”

This new study would in theory have come under the aegis of the UK’s newly formed Big Tech regulator. However, the Digital Markets Unit will have no authority until new legislation empowers it in 2022.

The CMA is calling for users or businesses to contribute to its study and emphasizes that it is soliciting the views of developers in particular. The closing date for submissions is July 26.

ALSO READ-Epic Games’ case against Apple in UK rejected

READ MORE-UK Antitrust probe into Apple App Store

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‘Sunak’s in-laws face £5.5m demand in Amazon India tax dispute’

UK Chancellor in-laws hit with 5.5m pound bill in Amazon India tax dispute: Report.

The emergence of case follows small traders claim they are being squeezed out of business by the multinational’s selling practices and that the US retailer’s 1 billion-pound-a-year venture with the chancellor’s father-in-law…reports Asian Lite News

A joint venture between UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s billionaire in-laws and the internet retailing giant Amazon is in a multimillion-pound dispute with the Indian tax authorities, a Guardian investigation has found.

The disclosure adds to the list of legal battles currently involving the joint venture, following news on Friday that India’s competition commission has been given permission to relaunch an investigation into Amazon.

The Guardian reported that small traders claim they are being squeezed out of business by the multinational’s selling practices and that the US retailer’s 1 billion-pound-a-year venture with the chancellor’s father-in-law, the technology entrepreneur NR Narayana Murthy, could be bypassing Indian foreign ownership rules.

N R Narayana Murthy(Wikipedia)

Amazon says it is operating in full compliance with local laws.

The emergence of the tax case follows last week’s G7 discussions, when the finance ministers of the world’s largest economies agreed a global deal designed to make tech companies pay more tax.

ALSO READ: Sunak warns of taxing times ahead

In India, foreign companies are banned from running an online retailer that holds inventory and then sells the goods directly to Indian consumers online. So, instead, the Amazon.in website is run as a “marketplace”, with Indian retailers selling their products via the site in return for a fee to the US giant, the report said.

One of the largest sellers on Amazon.in is a company called Cloudtail, a business indirectly 76 per cent — owned by an investment firm controlled by the Murthy family. The remaining quarter of Cloudtail is owned by Amazon.

An analysis of the company’s accounts and activities by the Guardian shows that Cloudtail: faces a 5.5 million pound demand — including “interest and penalties” — from India’s tax authorities has paid “meagre” taxes over the past four years, while using a business model described as Amazon “on steroids” has filled its top two posts — chief executive and finance director — with Amazon executives, while Cloudtail’s holding company, Prione, has also been run by former Amazon managers.

Cloudtail’s most recent accounts state: “The company has received a show cause notice in the current year from Directorate General of Goods and Service Tax Intelligence amounting to Rs 5,455 lakh (5.5 million pound) along with interest and penalties for service tax-related matters.”

It is not known precisely what the tax dispute is about. The company said it was contesting the bill, and added: “Since this matter is sub judice, we are unable to comment any further.”

ALSO READ: UK calls EU view of Northern Ireland ‘offensive’

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Business India News

CAIT urges CCI probe into Amazon, Flipkart

Amazon ,flipkart

The CAIT has also urged Goyal to immediately issue a fresh Press Note replacing Press Note 2 of the FDI policy with a Monitoring mechanism to ensure that law of the land prevails…reports Asian Lite News

A day after the Karnataka High Court judgement dismissing the petition of Amazon & Flipkart, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Saturday sent a communication to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal urging him to direct the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to immediately initiate investigation proceedings against Amazon and Flipkart without any further ado.

The CAIT has also urged Goyal to immediately issue a fresh Press Note replacing Press Note 2 of the FDI policy with a Monitoring mechanism to ensure that law of the land prevails and no one should dare to violate the policy, law or the rules. The CAIT has also proposed that to bring greater transparency in e-commerce business, every company indulging into any e-commerce activity through any type of electronic mode should have to take a Registration Number from the DPIIT.

CAIT declared that traders across the Country will observe forthcoming week beginning 14th June to 21st June as ” E-Commerce Purification Week” under which thousands of trade associations of the Country , on forthcoming 16th June, will handover a memorandum in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to their respective District Collectors urging the Union Government to take immediate steps to stop continued violations of the policy and the rules by Amazon, Flipkart and other similar foreign funded e-commerce companies.

The traders delegation will meet Chief Minister and Finance Minister of their respective State and will call upon that small traders must not face any backlash from e-commerce companies. The trade associations across the Country will send memorandums to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal to protect the business community from the onslaught of e-commerce companies.

CAIT said these e-commerce companies have left no stone unturned in passing deaf ears to the repeated statements made by Goyal several times and have indulged in unethical & illegal activities by flouting the mandatory provisions of the FDI Policy in both letter & spirit. This fact has been corroborated by Delhi High Court in January 2021 in the matter of Amazon v/s Future Retail that Amazon is indulging into mal-practices and yesterday when Karnataka High Court stated in its order that “It is expected that an order directing investigation be supported by ‘some reasoning’, which the commission has fulfilled”. This observation of the Court has substantiated the fact that everything is not going well and therefore, the investigation should continue. Both the trade leaders complimented CCI for arguing the case well and stood firmly with its observations and actions.

ALSO READ: Byju’s becomes most valued Indian startup

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Business India News

Amazon gives 100 ICU ventilators to India

E-commerce giant has signed agreement with US firm to provide ICU ventilator units from US to Covid hit India…reports Asian Lite News

E-commerce major Amazon on Tuesday announced that it has procured 100 ventilators and will import these to India, in its bid to help the country fight the devastating second wave of Covid-19.

Amazon has tied up with Medtronic, an American-Irish medical device company, to deliver the units to India in the next two weeks.

“Amazon has worked with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to ensure the ventilators are of acceptable technical specification and carried out its own compatibility checks to immediately fund 100 units of Medtronic’s PB980 model and bring them into India for urgent use,” the company shared in a blogpost.

The e-commerce giant is also working closely with the Health Ministry’s appointed agencies to finalise the hospitals for end-to-end delivery, installation, maintenance and training of personnel who will use these machines.

40-bed medical facility with oxygen
Also read:Amazon to allow direct seller-customer contact

“We hugely appreciate the quick response from the MoHWF to help identify the most compatible models, expediting the shipment import into India and for coordination with agencies of MoHFW to allocate these where they are needed most. We are doing more and are committed to support our country in the fight against Covid-19,” said Amit Agarwal, Global SVP and Country Head, Amazon India, in the blog post.

The company had, meanwhile on Sunday, announced to donate 10,000 oxygen concentrators and BiPAP machines to hospitals and public institutions to augment their capacity to help Covid-19 infected patients across multiple cities in India.

The first of these consignments was set to land in Mumbai on Sunday and a majority of the shipping is expected to be completed by April 30.

Additionally, Amazon also joined hands with ACT Grants, Temasek Foundation, Pune Platform for Covid-19 Response (PPCR) and other partners to urgently airlift over 8,000 oxygen concentrators and 500 BiPAP machines from Singapore.

Also read:Amazon helps india breathe


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Business India News

Amazon helps india breathe

The first of these consignments was set to land in Mumbai on Sunday and a majority of the shipping is expected to be completed by April 30….reports Asian Lite News

Amazon on Sunday announced to donate 10,000 oxygen concentrators and BiPAP machines to hospitals and public institutions to augment their capacity to help Covid-19 infected patients across multiple cities in India.

The first of these consignments was set to land in Mumbai on Sunday and a majority of the shipping is expected to be completed by April 30.

Amazon has joined hands with ACT Grants, Temasek Foundation, Pune Platform for COVID-19 Response (PPCR) and other partners to urgently airlift over 8,000 oxygen concentrators and 500 BiPAP machines from Singapore.

Additionally, Amazon India is also procuring over 1,500 oxygen concentrators and other critical medical equipment in partnership with non-profits including Swasth, Concern India and impact organisations like ACT Grants and Sattva Consulting.

The company said that the organisations are working closely with the Indian government to expedite the entry of these oxygen concentrators and BiPAP machines into the country.

Oxygen cylinders

“We stand firmly with the country, deploying our global logistics network to urgently airlift the needed oxygen concentrators to support the nation’s immediate need,” said Amit Agarwal, Global SVP and Country Head, Amazon India.

Amazon will bear the cost of airlifting these oxygen concentrators and BiPAP machines, procured through multiple funders including ACT Grants and PPCR from Singapore to India through Air India and other international carriers.

Additionally, the company will also manage the movement of these oxygen concentrators and other donations from the local airport to identified hospitals and institutions.

Also read:Amazon to allow direct seller-customer contact