Over the past few years, there have been more and more signs that India has surpassed China as the international market most crucial to Amazon’s future success.
Here’s another key data point: Starting in 2015, India has been discussed way more frequently on Amazon earnings calls with analysts than China has.
China has been a consistent topic on Amazon’s earnings calls for the past decade, mentioned every year since 2007, according to a review of FactSet data. India had not been mentioned at all until 2013, the year that Amazon launched a dedicated shopping site in the country.
Now, it is mentioned twice as frequently as China. In 2017 (which includes earnings calls for Q4 2016 through Q3 2017), India was mentioned 31 times while China was mentioned 15 times.
Amazon launched Prime in India and China about a year ago. The service took off in India. “We've had more Prime members join in India than in any other country in the first 12 months,” CFO Brian Olsavsky said on the latest earnings call.
China, the world’s largest e-commerce market, has been much tougher to crack, thanks to stiff competition from local competitors Alibaba and JD.com.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
