Amazon infuses Rs 225 cr into India payments unit

Amazon has infused over Rs 225 crore into its payments unit in India, Amazon Pay, according to regulatory documents. The fresh infusion is expected to help the company compete more aggressively against rivals like PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm. The board has approved “allotment of 22,50,00000 equity shares… aggregating to Rs 225 crore to the existing shareholder on rights basis”, regulatory documents sourced by business intelligence platform Tofler showed.

The shares were allotted to Amazon Corporate Holdings Private Limited and Amazon.com.Incs Limited, the documents filed with the corporate affairs ministry showed. Amazon did not respond to queries. In October last year, Amazon Pay had received over Rs 700 crore, while in January, an infusion of Rs 1,355 crore was made by these entities. Amazon has been pumping in millions of dollars across various operations like marketplace, wholesale and payments business as it looks to strengthen its position in the Indian market.

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In January last year, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had announced USD 1 billion (over Rs 7,000 crore) incremental investment in India to help bring small and medium businesses online. Previously, the online retail giant had committed USD 5.5 billion investment in India, one of Amazon’s most important markets outside of the US and a key growth driver.