Amazon to make Fire TV stick, other devices in India

After a virtual conversation with Amit Agarwal, Global Senior Vice President of Amazon and Country Head for India and Chetan Krishnaswamy, Vice President, Public Policy of Amazon India on Wednesday, the Union Minister for Electronics and IT, Ravi Shankar  Prasad took to Twitter and the homegrown social media platform Koo, to make the announcement.

"Held a very good conversation with @AmitAgarwal and @Chetankrishna of @amazonIN today. Delighted to share that soon Amazon will commence manufacturing of electronics products like FireTV stick in India," Prasad said.

Further, Amazon also has announced its plans to begin manufacturing Amazon Devices in India. In a blogpost, the company said that it will commence its manufacturing efforts with contract manufacturer Cloud Network Technology, a subsidiary of Foxconn in  Chennai and start production later this year.

As per the blog, the device manufacturing programme will be able to produce hundreds of thousands of Fire TV Stick devices every year. Amazon will continuously evaluate scaling capacity to additional marketplaces or cities depending on the domestic demand,  it added.

The minister during his conservation with the Amazon India executives also asked them to help in taking products made by India's artisans and Ayurvedic products to global markets through e-commerce.

"@amazon is a global company but Amazon India must evolve as a truly Indian company deeply connected with Indian business community and culture," Prasad tweeted.

Another tweet by the minister also said that the Ministry of IT is setting up several digital villages and Amazon India can pick up a few villages in India and develop them as fully digital villages. Amazon should also work with small local shops and make them a stakeholder in the larger efforts of Amazon to grow its business, he added.

Agarwal said that Amazon is committed to partner with the Indian government to advance the vision of an 'Atmanirbhar Bharat'.

"Amazon is committed to partner with the Indian government to advance the vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. We have pledged to invest US $1 billion to digitize 10 million small and medium businesses, help Indian businesses sell worldwide thereby enabling US $10B in cumulative exports, and create an additional 1MM jobs by 2025," he said.