E-commerce giant Amazon is "excited" about the Indian market, which is charged by digitisation, economic growth and younger demographics. The company's country head vice president for its Indian operations, Manish Tiwary, said this while asserting that the runway for e-commerce opportunity in India "is huge". 

In an interview with news agency PTI, Tiwary spoke about "a very clear calendar" for making business in the region profitable. He also assured that the company is on track to achieve its 2025 targets of digitising one crore MSMEs, enabling $20 billion in cumulative e-commerce exports and creating 20 lakh jobs in India. He said that Amazon is happy with the progress on its pledges, with the organisation focusing all its might on achieving the digitisation targets. 

Amazon, which recently marked its 10-year journey in India and has a 100 million-plus customer base, still considers it 'day zero' here, given the massive growth opportunities in this largely under-penetrated market. Tiwary pointed out that the e-commerce major continues to invest in India, as required by the market. 

Describing India's e-commerce market as "exciting and attractive", he went on to say that the "headroom is not a challenge for this industry, at least for the next few decades" so long as the onus is on getting the "customer and seller basics" right. 

"Worldwide for us...India continues to be a very exciting market...So worldwide, Amazon is very focused and continues to be super excited about India. We undertake a continuous review of our portfolios and meet profitability," he added.

Amazon's optimism about India's e-commerce prospects is backed by the pace of economic growth, digitisation, mobile and internet penetration, and most recently, the 5G adoption. "I can't think of too many markets of this size that can have this kind of potential," he said. 

A surge in online users and smartphone penetration, alongside rising household incomes, has fuelled a meteoric growth of India's e-commerce sector. As per FIS' 2023 Global Payments Report released earlier this year, India's e-commerce market is projected to grow to  $150 billion in 2026 from  $83 billion in 2022. 

According to a Redseer report, Indian e-commerce is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27 per cent to reach $163 billion by 2026, nearly three times the growth of the overall retail market. 

On competition in the market from Flipkart, JioMart, and others, Tiwary believes that given the low e-commerce penetration, market competition will not be a point of concern. 

"We do not worry about competition; more players will bring (more) innovation, and we are very respectful...You worry about these things when your penetration is 90 per cent, so as a company, we have always focused on customers," according to the Amazon senior executive. 

"We feel confident that the first 10 years have taught us ways on how to meet customer expectations. The market is so nascent... the more innovation, the more the players...I think, in the long run, it is much better for our sellers and customers," he said.