Amazon India to double storage capacity with 14 new delivery hubs

American ecommerce giant Amazon on Tuesday said it is set to double its storage capacity in India with the addition of 14 new fulfilment centres over the next couple of months, including the recently announced seven specialised ones for large appliances and furniture.

Amazon said the new FCs will be set up in Telangana, Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh to support its regular business, and all of them will be fully operational by the end of this quarter.

Besides, the company also announced doubling of storage capacity of the fulfilment centres in Ahmedabad and six times more space at the urban fulfilment centres in New Delhi to support increased customer and seller demand.

"We are excited to announce our plans for 2017 which will double our storage capacity to support this exponential growth of Amazon.in. We recently announced seven FCs [fulfilment centres] dedicated to large appliances and furniture and with this capacity doubling, we will now see 41 FCs in India for 2017," Akhil Saxena, vice president, India customer fulfilment, said in a statement.

"These 41 FCs will bring us closer to our customers and enable thousands of small and medium businesses to fulfil their orders in a cost-efficient manner. With close to 5,000 new jobs created by these 14 new FCs, we continue to remain committed to investing in infrastructure and technology in India."

The company said the new FCs will enable more sellers in the three new states of Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh to gain access to and service customers across the country at significantly low operating costs.

"The company's FCs will cover a total area of close to 4 million square feet and offer a storage capacity of over 13 million cubic feet," the statement said.

Currently, over two million products are available for immediate shipping through the network of Amazon's FCs in India.

"[The company] grew almost 85 per cent in the first quarter of 2017 and continues to rapidly expand to tier-2 and -3 cities and more in its aim to deliver to the most remote parts of India," the statement added.