Amazon to make Fire TV Sticks in first India manufacturing push

Amazon.com Inc. will begin making devices in India for the first time, joining a flock of technology companies setting up manufacturing operations in the South Asian country.

The Seattle-based e-commerce giant will start making the devices via a subsidiary of its manufacturing partner Foxconn Technology Group and production will start later this year in its facilities outside Chennai, the company said in a blog post on Tuesday.

“The device manufacturing program will be able to produce hundreds of thousands of Fire TV Stick devices every year, catering to the demands of customers in India,” the company said in the blog. “Amazon will continuously evaluate scaling capacity to additional marketplaces.”

The online retailer is joining electronics giants such as Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. in making devices like phones and tablets in the South Asian nation. On Tuesday, Amazon’s India chief Amit Agarwal briefed the country’s minister for electronics and information technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, on the details of the company’s manufacturing plans as it reiterated its commitment to the government’s Make in India push.

Amazon has deep roots in India, with founder Jeff Bezos pledging to build one of his biggest e-commerce operations outside of the U.S. in the country. But the company’s expansion into a retail market worth an estimated $1 trillion has hit hurdles and it’s currently locked in a legal battle over the sale of Mumbai-based Future Group’s assets to billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd.

With its latest manufacturing program, Amazon is signaling that it’s digging its heels in. The company had earlier pledged an investment of $1 billion to digitize 10 million small and medium businesses, help Indian companies export $10 billion of goods and also promised to create an additional 1 million jobs by 2025.