Amazon inaugurates its largest campus in the world in Hyderabad

The new facility will be the only Amazon-owned campus which is outside of the US

Amazon, the global e-commerce giant has recently opened its latest campus in Hyderabad, India, which is also its largest till date. The subcontinent is one of the fastest growing markets of the company and its newest campus spreads over 9.5 acres, with 1.8 million square feet of office space.

Apparently, around one third of the 62,000 employees of Amazon in India are based in the city, and it has already shifted over 4,500 of them to the new campus. The biggest buildings in Seattle, the home base of Amazon, can house around 5,000 employees.

According to Amazon India country manager and senior VP, Amit Agarwal, it is the company’s largest technology base outside Seattle, Washington, USA. Hyderabad employees include product managers, machine learning scientists, finance department, software development engineers, and many other functions.

Sources familiar with the matter informed that it is the only Amazon-owned campus which is outside of US. Amazon has allocated $5.5 billion to fund its expansion in the country and there are numerous scopes for it, as e-commerce accounts for only 3% or so of all retail sales there. The company is apparently planning to purchase 10% of Future Retail, one of the biggest bricks and mortar retailers in India.

Seemingly, Amazon had set up its shop in India in the year 2004, however, did not commence its retail service there until 2013. It has opened up grocery delivery and Amazon Prime Video to consumers in India, and over the last 18 months, Prime membership has doubled so far. The company is also planning to start restaurant delivery service there.

Sources further mentioned that the beginning of the campus follows the failure of its proposed HQ2 in New York City earlier in 2019. It is still going ahead with its HQ2 plans in Virginia, Arlington. It plans to employ 25,000 people there, the same number of people that was allocated for the New York base.

 

Source Credits: https://www.engadget.com/2019/08/21/amazon-campus-india/