Amazon Wholesale India Pvt Ltd has reported a net profit of Rs 2.8 crore for financial year 2016-2017 on revenue of Rs 7,069.8 crore or $1.08 billion for the same period. Revenue for fiscal year 2015-2016 was Rs 3.2 crore, according to data sourced from business intelligence platform paper.vc .
Founded in 2013, Amazon Wholesale India is a B2B business (AmazonBusiness.in), that is a members-only website, meant specifically for businesses including small offices, entrepreneurs, department stores, kirana stores, drug stores, hospitals, hotels, etc. It also sources products from brands across the world and sells it to third party sellers who re-sell it on Amazon’s India marketplace – Amazon.in.
Currently serving businesses in Bengaluru and Mangaluru only, members can purchase thousands of items, including business supplies and products for resale at wholesale prices and in bulk quantities. Members can order from anywhere at any time of the day, pay via Amazon’s trusted payment platform and get door-step deliveries through its reliable delivery service, says the website.
“Amazon has managed to make a profit, albeit a very small profit, by increasing its operational efficiencies that has reduced its costs in its B2B business. While Amazon will continue to make profits with its operational efficiencies in its B2B business, it will continue to make losses in its B2C marketplace business for the next 10 years at least” said K Vaitheeswaran, founder of India’s first e-commerce company. Globally, Amazon is making money in all of its businesses except in its B2C business, which is not an easy task, as it is largely a discount-led game, he said.
Amazon Wholesale India, which has over 10,000 sellers, received an infusion of Rs 160 crore in funding from its parent company in December 2016 in order to compete with market leader Flipkart. Last July, it received another infusion of Rs 341 crore.
For the quarter ended March 2018 Amazon posted $622 million in losses from its international business, which includes the India market, up from $481 million in the same period last year. However, in an investor call, Senior VP and CFO at Amazon.com, Brian Olsavsky said “We will continue to invest in India where we are seeing great progress with both sellers and customers.”