Tamil Nadu Sees 35% YoY Growth Driven By Demand For Premium Products: Amazon Official

Tamil Nadu has been recording a 35% year-on-year growth on the back of huge demand for premium products across categories, a company official of e-commerce major Amazon said on Wednesday.

More customers from Tamil Nadu were keen on buying premium products across consumer electronics including smartphones ranging above Rs 30,000 or Rs 1 lakh and above, double-door refrigerators, action cameras, among others.

The flexibility to pay back the purchases made through calculated easy-monthly-installments was also a contributing factor in Tamil Nadu witnessing a fastest growth rate of 35%, said Amazon India Director-Consumer Electronics Ranjit Babu.

"This year started on an encouraging note as we saw double-digit growth across segments. More customers prefer to buy products online. Tamil Nadu has recorded the fastest growth rate of 35% year-on-year as against industry growing in single digit," he told reporters.

Babu was also of the view that his company was receiving good response in sales from Tier II and III towns of Tamil Nadu. "For example places like Salem, Madurai, Tiruchirappalli were also contributing. We are serving hundreds of pin codes (in the State)", he said.

According to company officials, Amazon has about 16 lakh sellers across India, 95,000 in Tamil Nadu.

Babu said purchases made through equated monthly installment., including Amazon's Pay Later, were growing upwards in the range of 45-55% across its product categories.

"There are so many avenues in which customers are able to upgrade. We are really bullish about premiumisation across categories for Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu and Chennai emerged as one of the most promising regions for the consumer electronics category on Amazon.in," he said.

Babu and senior officials were here to announce the 30 day sale season of 'The Great Indian Festival' scheduled to begin on its portal from September 27.

"There will be a lot of new launches during the Great Indian Festival season," he said and added that the ecommerce portal witnessed demands for air-conditioners, refrigerators, headphones, accessories for personal computers, smartwatches ahead of the festive season.

Apple iPhone, Samsung and OnePlus emerged as popular phone brands in the smartphone category while Sony, LG were largely preferred when customers opted to buy smart TVs, he said.

Babu said the company has introduced a 'Phone Setup Service' in which a customer would be able to avail the service from a professional nominated by Amazon for setting up a smartphone with installation of customers preferred mobile applications, linking email addresses among others.

The 'Phone Setup Service' will be available at an additional cost of Rs 120 for customers. This service would be expanded into more than 300 cities across India, he said.