As a measure to Eliminate China Sourcing, Amazon Sets up its Device Manufacturing in Chennai

Amazon India has planned to initiate its local manufacturing of its devices in Chennai. This initiative is taken to cut down the dependency on China. Alongside, this move would also push the government’s Make-in-India program. The e-commerce firm would associate with Foxconn’s subsidiary Cloud Network Technology in Chennai to make its Fire TV Stick which aids in streaming on smart TVs.

The Chennai facility is likely to begin its operation later this year. Amazon was largely sourcing its Fire TV Stick from China and Taiwan for the India market. In a blog post, the company said it is looking to manufacture lakhs of devices in India every year and would consider scaling up manufacturing capacity based on the domestic demand.

Amit Agarwal, Amazon India head tweeted stating, “The Indian government recently introduced production-linked incentives (PLIs) for various electronic products. “This further reiterates our commitment to ‘Make in India’, contributing directly to the local economy, creating jobs & boosting Indian innovation.”

IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who attended a virtual meeting with Amit Agarwal and other Amazon India leaders, also tweeted, saying, “Under the leadership of PM @narendramodi, electronics manufacturing in India has recently attracted some of the biggest investments from global giants. Happy to share @amazonIN is the latest to join this success story of India.”

In a series of tweets, Ravi also urged Amazon to help take products made by local artisans and ayurvedic products global through its e-commerce platform. Last month, Amazon India had announced as setting up an accelerator program that aims to build and boost exports of locally made consumer brands globally.

This is part of its additional $1-billion investment for India to digitise 10 million small and medium businesses, and enable $10 billion in cumulative exports from India. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had announced the company wants to create a total of 1 million jobs by 2025.