Amazon to manufacture Fire TV Stick in India from this year

Reiterating its commitment to the Government of India’s ‘Make in India’ initiative for an Atmanirbhar Bharat, Amazon will start manufacturing Amazon devices in India later this year. Catering to the domestic demand, the e-commerce giant will commence manufacturing of Fire TV Stick at contract manufacturer Cloud Network Technology, a subsidiary of Foxconn in Chennai later this year.

Amit Agarwal, SVP and Country Head, Amazon India briefed Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Communications, Electronics & Information Technology and Law & Justice on its plans to begin manufacturing Amazon devices in India. The minister welcomed Amazon’s decision to set up a manufacturing line in Chennai, as it will enhance domestic production capacities, and create jobs as well.

“India is an attractive investment destination and is poised to become a major player in the global supply chain in the electronics and IT products industry. Our government’s decision to launch a Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme has received tremendous response globally. This will further our mission of creating a Atmanirbhar Bharat which is digitally empowered,” said the minister.

Catering to the demands of Indian customers, hundreds of thousands of Fire TV Sticks will be produced under this new device manufacturing program. However, Amazon plans to continuously evaluate scaling capacity in additional marketplaces/cities depending on the domestic demand.

“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 digitise 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,” says Agarwal of Amazon.

Competing against the already available Google Chromecast, Amazon had launched Fire TV Stick in India in April 2017. It gave access to Prime Video along with many third-party streaming apps such as Hotstar, Eros Now, Voot, Airtel Movies and more, fueling the growth of OTT in India. The Fire TV Stick emerged as a great alternative to accessing online content on non-smart TVs in the country. The company had also launched Fire TV Edition Smart TVs with Onida back in December 2019. Business Today