Amazon inaugurates its world largest campus in Hyderabad, can accommodate 15,000 employees
Hyderabad, Aug 21: US-based e-commerce giant Amazon on Wednesday inaugurated its new campus here - its largest facility globally - that will house 15,000 of its employees in India.
The campus building contains over 2.5 times more steel than the Eiffel Tower, measured by weight, and is spread over 9.5 acres of land.
With 15,000 work points across 1.8 million sq ft in office space, built on 3 million sq ft of construction area - this is Amazon's single largest building in the world in terms of total area, said Amazon Vice President of Global Real Estate and Facilities John Schoettler.
"We have eight buildings in Hyderabad with 4 million sq ft of office space. We are going to be migrating some of the employees out of some of those facilities (to the new campus). So far as of today, we moved around 4,500 to the (new campus). The building can hold - at any given point of time - 15,000 people," he told reporters here.
This is the only Amazon-owned campus outside the US. The move strengthens Amazon's focus on talent in India, where the company has over 62,000 full-time employees.
"It (Hyderabad campus) is also the largest technology base outside Seattle (Amazon's headquarters). The employees (in Hyderabad) include software development engineers, machine learning scientists, product managers, finance and many other functions," Amazon India Senior VP and Country Manager Amit Agarwal said.
Amazon had laid the foundation stone for the campus building on March 30, 2016. An average of 2,000 workers were on the site every day for 39 months to construct the building, spending 18 million man-hours.
The company, which is locked in an intense battle for market leadership in India with Walmart-owned Flipkart, has also focussed on sustainability while designing the new facility.
The campus has more than 300 trees dotting its grounds with three specimen trees aged over 200 years and has an 850,000-litre water recycling plant, Schoettler said.
Amazon has three fulfilment centres in Telangana offering more than 3.2 million cubic feet of storage space to sellers, two sort centres with one lakh sq ft of processing capacity and 90 delivery stations, a statement said.
Emphasising the company's commitment to the Indian market, Agarwal said it has already announced USD 5 billion investments in India, and another USD 500 million in food and retail.
"We continue to invest across all over businesses," he added.
He said the company has not seen a slowdown in its business in India.
"As far as our services go, we don't see any slowdown. There could be multiple reasons. I think one thing to keep in mind is that e-commerce is very, very small...it is probably just 3 per cent (of total retail). When you are that small, there is so much room to grow," he said.
Agarwal said the company had launched its Global Selling programme in India a few years ago that allows small and medium businesses in the country to sell to customers in other countries.
"What we have seen is while we have 500,000 sellers in the marketplace selling nationally, for exports already we have 50,000 signed up. We have 140 million items that are available on Amazon.com in the global marketplaces. The cumulative exports so far since launch has crossed USD 1 billion and in the next three years, it is expected to go 5 times to USD 5 billion," he said.
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Never entered into pact to operate airport in Kenya: Adani group
New Delhi, Nov 23: Billionaire Gautam Adani's group on Saturday clarified on reports of Kenya cancelling more than USD 2.5 billion in deals after US indictment on bribery charges, saying it had not entered into any binding agreement to operate Kenya's main airport.
On the pact it had signed last month to build and operate key electricity transmission lines in Kenya for 30 years, the group said the project did not fall within the ambit of Sebi's disclosure regulations, thereby not warranting any disclosure on its cancellation.
The group was responding to notices sent by stock exchanges to confirm reports of Kenyan President William Ruto ordering the cancellation of a procurement process that had been expected to award control of the country's main airport after the conglomerate's founder was indicted in the United States.
Adani Enterprises Ltd, the flagship firm of billionaire Gautam Adani's group which houses its airport business, in a filing said it had in August this year incorporated a step-down subsidiary in Kenya to upgrade, modernise, and manage airports.
"While the company was in discussion with the relevant authority for the said project, till date neither the company nor its subsidiaries (i) have been awarded any airport project in Kenya, or (ii) entered into any binding or definitive agreement in connection with any airport in Kenya," the firm said.
It did not confirm or deny reports of Kenya cancelling the airport deal.
Adani Energy Solutions Ltd, the firm that operates power transmission lines, in a separate filing said on October 9 it was awarded the project to construct transmission lines in Kenya. Thereafter, it had incorporated a step-down subsidiary in Kenya.
"We submit that the project does not fall within the ambit of item 4 of Para B, Part A, Schedule III of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015, as amended (Sebi Listing Regulations) which requires intimation to be made for any awarding, bagging/ receiving, amendment or termination of awarded/bagged orders/contracts other than in the ordinary course of business," it said refusing to confirm or deny the cancellation.
It went on to state that the award of the project was in the ordinary course of business of the company and its subsidiaries as they are engaged in the business of transmission and distribution of energy (among other things).
"Consequently, any cancellation of such Project will also not fall within the ambit of item 4 of Para B, Part A, Schedule III of the Sebi Listing Regulations," it added.
Under the proposed airport deal worth nearly USD 2 billion, the conglomerate was to add a second runway at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport and upgrade the passenger terminal. It was also to operate it on a 30-year lease.
Kenya's President in his state of the nation address on Thursday also stated that he was cancelling a separate 30-year, USD 736-million public-private partnership that an Adani Group firm signed with the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum last month to construct power transmission lines.
That followed US authorities indicting group Founder and Chairman Gautam Adani and seven others for allegedly agreeing to pay USD 265 million to Indian officials to win lucrative solar power supply contracts.
The Adani Group denied the allegations as baseless and said it would seek "all possible legal recourse".
The tender to operate Kenya's main airport was put on hold following local protests.
Adani Energy Solutions Ltd had last month signed a project agreement with the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company Ltd (Ketraco) for developing three transmission lines and two substations.
