Andy Jassy Bets India Will Run Amazon’s Quick-Commerce Future

Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy announced on Wednesday that Amazon will expand Amazon Now, its quick-commerce delivery service, to more than 300+ Indian cities, up from the 15 or so it currently serves, and backed the move with an extra $35 billion in planned India investment through 2030.

Jassy toured an Amazon Now micro-fulfilment centre in Mumbai on the first leg of his first India visit since taking the Amazon CEO role, then met Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to discuss data centres, healthcare, and AI-led skill development. The trip is short on ceremony and long on product: Jassy used it to publicly recast India as the place where Amazon builds the next version of both its quick-commerce playbook and its AI-led tools for the rest of the world.

Amazon Now Will Reach 300+ Cities in India

Amazon plans to take Amazon Now from its current footprint of more than 15 cities to over 300 Indian cities, the company said Wednesday, a move that would give it the widest geographic spread in India’s ultra-fast delivery market. The service, launched in September 2025, currently serves more than 50 million customers across cities including Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Amritsar and Kochi. The 300-city push will take Amazon deeper into tier-2 and tier-3 markets where most quick-commerce rivals have only a limited presence.

“It’s our fastest-growing e-commerce business unit in India, and we’re expanding to 300+ cities as part of our plan to build the country’s largest delivery-in-minutes network,” Jassy said in a post on X. He added that “what we’ve learned building it here is now helping us scale it across the US and around the world.” Amazon will scale up its network of micro and urban fulfilment centres to stock groceries, fresh produce, personal care, beauty, fashion and small appliances for delivery within minutes.

Amazon said orders on Amazon Now have doubled every quarter since launch, and that Prime members triple their shopping frequency once they start using the service. Samir Kumar, country manager for Amazon India, called the response from Prime members especially strong and credited delivery associates for making the scale-up possible. Amazon Now first expanded to Mumbai in September 2025 after early launches in Bengaluru and Delhi, and the service has since rolled out to non-metro cities such as Amritsar and Kochi.

Why India Is Exporting Its Quick-Commerce Playbook Now

India is becoming the source of Amazon’s quick-commerce playbook, not just a place to run it. Jassy said on X that the lessons Amazon is drawing from India are now helping it scale Amazon Now across the US and other markets.

Amazon Now launched in India in September 2025 and has since been rolled out to the UK and UAE, making India the test bed for a service Amazon is now pushing globally. The Indian operation has shown faster order velocities and broader category take-up than the early UK pilots, according to industry coverage of the launch sequence. The expansion also fits inside Amazon’s $35 billion India investment plan through 2030, which names quick commerce among its growth pillars alongside AI, exports and jobs.

Mumbai is the first stop on Jassy’s India trip, with Delhi also on the itinerary later this week. Indian engineering teams have built much of the order-management and routing software Amazon Now runs on, a point Jassy returned to at the Mumbai roundtable. Mumbai is also home to Prime Video’s creative operations and to AWS’s first India infrastructure Region, both of which Jassy referenced during the trip.

The Indian entertainment operation ships originals to more than 240 countries worldwide, Amazon said. None of those pieces is new, but the Mumbai visit was the first time Jassy publicly framed them as one stack rather than three separate businesses, a signal that Amazon’s India strategy is being run as a single product organisation from now on.

Maharashtra Pitches Amazon on a $1 Trillion State Economy

Maharashtra is the centre of gravity for Amazon’s India business, and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis used Wednesday’s meeting with Jassy to pitch a much larger role for the US tech giant. Fadnavis invited Amazon to invest in data centres, healthcare infrastructure and AI-led skill development in the state, according to a government statement quoted by Moneycontrol. Maharashtra aims to grow its economy from an estimated $660 billion to $1 trillion by 2030 and has already crossed more than half of that target, Fadnavis said, calling the state “the data centre capital of the country.”

Maharashtra was the first Indian state to implement a public cloud policy and has already worked with AWS on cloud initiatives, Fadnavis told Jassy. The state is also building AI-enabled systems for agriculture, infrastructure, healthcare and education, and Fadnavis pitched Amazon separately on the upcoming Medicity project in Navi Mumbai, an integrated healthcare ecosystem the state is developing. The state’s green data-centre policy and MSME base were framed as reasons for Amazon to go deeper locally.

Amazon has called Maharashtra the “anchor” of its Indian operations, pointing to AWS’s first India infrastructure Region and a growing technology and operations workforce in Mumbai, Pune and other cities. Prime Video’s creative operations are also based in Mumbai, and the streaming service ships Indian originals to more than 240 countries worldwide. The data centre boom reshaping India is largely playing out in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai, where the bulk of new capacity is being planned, a trend covered in more depth in Oton Technology’s look at India’s 8.33 GW data centre pipeline.

AI is the most transformational technology he has seen in his lifetime and India will be where some of its most important applications are built.

Andy Jassy, Amazon chief executive, speaking at a Mumbai roundtable with Indian CEOs on June 24, 2026.

AI as the Most Transformational Technology of His Lifetime

The Mumbai roundtable with leading Indian CEOs was where Jassy made his strongest case for India as more than a consumer market. He called AI the most transformational technology he has seen in his lifetime and said India will be where some of its most important applications are built. The framing matters because Amazon’s $35 billion India plan makes AI-led digitisation one of three named pillars, alongside export growth and job creation.

Jassy pointed to India’s engineering depth and pace of digital adoption as the reasons the country can move from AI experimentation to measurable business outcomes. The roundtable focused on how Indian companies can build AI products for domestic and global users, with the conversation framed around shipped products rather than pilot projects. The argument echoes Nilekani’s case that AI amplifies Indian IT rather than displaces it, a theme Infosys’s chairman pushed at this year’s annual general meeting.

Amazon already plans to bring AI benefits to 15 million Indian small businesses by 2030 through tools such as Seller Assistant and other marketplace products. The company is also planning AI curriculum and career programmes for 4 million government school students. The visit landed in the middle of a wider US push to use India as a showcase for Global South technology partnerships, including a string of $250 billion deals announced at a recent AI summit.

Jassy’s framing of India as a builder and not just a consumer lands that argument inside the room where Amazon’s India roadmap actually gets set. If the $35 billion figure holds, India will account for the single largest chunk of Amazon’s emerging-markets capital spending for the rest of the decade.

Sammaan and a Welfare Push for Delivery Associates

Amazon used the Mumbai trip to launch Sammaan, a welfare programme focused on the tens of thousands of delivery associates who power its e-commerce and quick-commerce businesses. The programme sits inside a $300 million Amazon India investment in operations and associate well-being, with a portion of that money funding Sammaan’s rollout. Amazon also said it will expand its Ashray network of air-conditioned rest centres to 250 locations across India, open to delivery workers across the industry.

The package includes enhanced health and life insurance benefits, educational scholarships for delivery associates’ children, and other welfare measures. Samir Kumar said Sammaan was designed around the role delivery associates play in making Amazon Now’s 300-city plan possible. The launch comes as Amazon and its quick-commerce rivals face persistent scrutiny over the working conditions of last-mile workers in Indian cities.

Where Amazon Now Stands in India’s Quick-Commerce Race

Amazon’s 300-city ambition is the broadest in Indian quick commerce, but the company still runs a fraction of the daily orders the market leader handles. According to industry estimates cited by the Financial Express, Amazon Now processes around 450,000 to 500,000 orders a day. Blinkit, the segment leader owned by Eternal, processed roughly 3 million orders a day in the March quarter, while Zepto averaged about 2.3 million and Swiggy Instamart around 1.25 million.

Dark-store counts tell the same story from the supply side. Blinkit operated 2,243 dark stores at the end of March across more than 200 cities, Swiggy Instamart had 1,143 across 129 cities and Zepto operated 1,139 across 66 cities, according to their draft IPO documents. Datum Intelligence estimates Amazon runs around 500 dark stores.

Eternal, Blinkit’s parent, has told investors that stores in the top eight Indian cities already cover 80-90% of serviceable pin codes, which is why growth in Indian quick commerce is moving outside the metros. Amazon’s tier-2 and tier-3 expansion is aimed at those markets, where Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart have only a handful of stores and where the economics of 10-minute delivery have not been tested at scale. Walmart-owned Flipkart is stepping up its own quick-commerce push ahead of a planned IPO, with Reuters reporting a focus on smaller towns. Analysts say Amazon’s broader logistics network and large Prime subscriber base give it room to scale quickly, but the daily-order gap is still the gap.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Amazon Now launch in India?

Amazon Now launched in India in September 2025, first in Bengaluru and Delhi, and expanded to Mumbai in the same month. It has since rolled out to more than 15 cities, including Pune, Hyderabad, Amritsar and Kochi.

How many Indian cities does Amazon Now operate in today?

Amazon Now is currently available in more than 15 Indian cities, including Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Amritsar and Kochi, and Amazon plans to take that footprint to more than 300 cities.

What is the Sammaan programme Amazon launched in India?

Sammaan is a welfare programme Amazon launched on June 24, 2026 for its delivery associates. It offers enhanced health and life insurance, scholarships for associates’ children and other benefits, and is funded in part from Amazon India’s $300 million investment in operations and associate well-being.

How does Amazon Now compare with Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart?

Industry estimates put Amazon Now’s daily orders at 450,000 to 500,000, against Blinkit’s roughly 3 million, Zepto’s 2.3 million and Instamart’s 1.25 million in the March quarter. Amazon plans to leapfrog the field on city count by reaching more than 300 cities.

How much is Amazon investing in India through 2030?

Amazon announced an additional $35 billion India investment through 2030 in December 2025, on top of roughly $40 billion already invested. The plan names AI-driven digitisation, export growth and job creation as its three pillars.