Amazon India appoints Samir Kumar to replace Manish Tiwary as India head

Samir Kumar, Amazon’s vice president of international consumer business based in Washington, is set to take over as the ecommerce giant’s country manager for India, a month after Manish Tiwary stepped down from the role.

The new role will be in addition to his current responsibility of leading Amazon’s consumer businesses in the Middle East, South Africa and Turkey, the firm said in a blog post on Wednesday. 

Kumar joined Amazon in 1999 and was a part of the original team that planned and launched Amazon.in in 2013. He is working closely with Tiwary on the transition, and will assume operational responsibility for India from 1 October, Amazon said.

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Tiwary stepped down as Amazon’s country manager for India in August to pursue other opportunities, ending an eight-year association with the ecommerce major.

Amazon India has made changes to its leadership team, with Saurabh Srivastava (categories), Harsh Goyal (everyday essentials), Amit Nanda (marketplace), and Aastha Jain (growth initiatives) now reporting to Kumar. Kishore Thota (emerging markets shopping experience) will report directly to Amit Agarwal, senior vice president of emerging markets.

Key market

Amazon’s India arm continues to face stiff competition from Walmart-owned Flipkart and tier 2-focused Meesho in India’s growing e-commerce market. The market is currently valued at $70 billion and is forecast to grow to $325 billion by 2030, driven by increasing internet penetration and smartphone users.

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India has turned out to be a key market for Amazon, prompting greater investment over the past few years. In February the US entity invested about $100 million in Amazon Seller Services. Tiwary said last year that the tech giant had digitised more than two million small businesses in India in 2022 alone, and was on course to achieve its target of digitising 10 million of them by 2025.

“India remains an important priority for Amazon, and I am super excited about the opportunity ahead as we continue to transform lives and livelihoods. We have a strong local leadership bench and, along with Samir’s experience across emerging markets, I am even more optimistic about our future plans to deliver for customers and the business in India,” Agarwal said.