Amazon, Future Group boost ties to fend off Asia’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani

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Amazon.com signed pacts with the Future Group to sell products from India’s second largest brick-and-mortar retailer on its online marketplace, as they fend off rivals in the world’s last big untapped retail market.

Amazon will become the authorized online sales channel for Future Retail Ltd.’s stores, which sell everything from groceries to cosmetics and apparel, according to an exchange filing Monday. The e-commerce giant will also have a tie-up with Future Consumer Ltd., that makes consumer goods like packaged snacks and household cleaners.

The deal deepens Amazon’s collaboration with Future Group as India’s 1.3 billion people become a prized catch for global retail giants who are effectively shut out of China. Walmart spent $16 billion to buy local e-commerce leader Flipkart Online Services in 2018 while Amazon has already pledged $5.5 billion investment in the country. Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest man, who controls India’s largest retail chain by turn over, unveiled his group’s online store last week.

“This arrangement will allow us to build upon each other’s strengths in the physical and digital space,” Kishore Biyani, founder and chairman of Future Retail said of the latest deal in a statement Monday.

Last year, Amazon agreed to buy 49% in one of Biyani’s unlisted firms that allows the American e-tailer to acquire stake in Future Retail between three and ten years.