Amazon says India business was most affected by Covid-19 pandemic

Amazon on late Thursday evening announced the quarterly results for the first quarter of 2020. During the announcement the company said that the Covid-19 pandemic had impacted its business in countries all around the world with the business in India being affected the most.

Amazon said that it had to cut back on a lot of offerings in India where the government had enforced a lockdown to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak. The company said that it was delivering only the essential goods in the country and that it would resume its operations when the Indian government allows it to do so.

"I think the biggest impact internationally has been in India where, of course, similar to all companies in India, we're now only fulfilling our essential goods such as grocery, so that's cut back a lot on our offering and we will further expand when the Indian government announces that we're allowed to resume operations. So we're in a bit of a holding pattern except for grocery in India," Brian T Olsavsky, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Amazon said in the earnings call with investors and analysts.

Separately, the company also announced that it would be spending $4 billion in Covid-19 related expenses in the second quarter of the year. The list includes investments in personal protective equipment, enhanced cleaning of facilities, less efficient process paths that better allow for effective social distancing, higher wages for hourly teams, and hundreds of millions to develop its own COVID-19 testing capabilities.

"There is a lot of uncertainty in the world right now, and the best investment we can make is in the safety and well-being of our hundreds of thousands of employees," Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in a statement.