Amazon’s biggest acquisition in India, set to expand food retail business

Amazon’s food retail business is all set to expand and grow in India. After the Walmart bought a majority stake in India’s Flipkart, its arch-rival Amazon has acquired Mumbai-based food-and-grocery chain More.

Amazon in partnership with Samara Capital is set to spend Rs 4,200 crore to buy Aditya Birla Group’s More chain of stores. Amazon plans to set up about 100-150 stores every year. These will mostly be neighbourhood markets as well as a few hypermarkets.

As of now, Amazon will buy a 35% stake of More retail, which will be eventually increased to 49%. Hence, Samara and Amazon India will own 51% and 49% share respectively of More Retail. In terms of size, this will be Amazon’s biggest acquisition in India.

Amazon already does online grocery deliveries for its Amazon Prime Now subscribers. Although it is limited to a few cities only and with this acquisition this service too will get a shot in the arm. So far, the supermarket space is dominated by Big Bazaar and Reliance Retail. With this acquisition, Amazon will take on the bigwigs of Indian retail space.

[source_without_link]SIASAT NEWS[/source_without_link]