Amazon.com     Inc.     will     continue      investing  heavily  in  India,  the  chief   of its local operations said, dispelling  concerns of slower spending by the  US  e-commerce  company  after  its   chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky  said that while the India investments  were  starting  to  show  results,  they   had   hit   margins,   contributing   to    lower-than-expected  results  in  the   third quarter. “Not   at   all,”   Amazon’s   India   chief    Amit  Agarwal  said  in  an  interview   on   Monday   when   asked   whether    Amazon       would       slow       down        investments     in     India.     Amazon,      which  initially  said  it  would  invest   $2  billion  in  India,  had  said  in  June   that it would invest an additional $3  billion in the country. That investment is on track, Agarwal  said,  adding  that  the  company  is   “excited  about  the  momentum  that   we see in India”. “India is very early in its e-commerce  trajectory. Amazon is very early in its  e-commerce  trajectory  in  India.  To   transform how India buys is going  to take a long time; it will take a lot  of investment and… for many years.  This is just the beginning.” Amazon is betting big on its Prime  service in India and expects the  loyalty programme to dominate  sales in the coming months. “Prime continued to be the top seller  in all of October, not just for wave  one (of the Great Indian Festival).  Prime membership continues to  be a top seller and it is going to be  so going forward every month. My  belief is that Prime membership will  be the top seller every month based  on the trends that we are seeing,”  said Agarwal. On Monday, Amazon also said that  it witnessed record numbers during  its month-long Diwali sale event,  the Great Indian Festival, with sales  jumping 2.7 times from last year. This year’s Diwali sale has proven  to be the biggest showdown in the  history of Indian e-commerce, with  Amazon India and rival Flipkart  going all out to woo shoppers. While Flipkart claimed to outsell  Amazon India during the first leg of  the sale season, Amazon claims it  came back strongly during the latter  half of the sale season, with bigger  discounts in key categories such as  smartphones and large appliances. “October this year for us was 2.7  times of last year’s October—which  is incredible because last year was  4 times the October before,” said  Agarwal, adding that this growth  came even as “conversations”  suggested growth in India’s  e-commerce business was going to  be flat. Agarwal said that October could be  an inflection point for e-commerce  in India. “We had categories from  phones to Amazon Fashion to  appliances growing three to 11  times; even newer categories such  as luxury and beauty grew 46 times;  grocery and everyday consumables,  7.1 times; furniture, 11.8 times; gold  jewellery, eight times—so a lot of  these categories are showing robust  growth.” Agarwal said that 70% of the  company’s new customers in  October came from tier-II and tier-III  cities, adding that it was confident  of carrying the momentum from its  Diwali sale well into November and  December. Mint couldn’t independently verify  the numbers, but, in general,  all e-commerce marketplaces  (including Snapdeal, Amazon and  Flipkart’s smaller rival) did well in  October, carrying forward their  momentum from their annual sales. “When I look at the gaps between  the waves, our growth rates in those  gaps continued to the same extent.  We’re growing at 150% year-over- year. At peacetime, the growth rate  is still what I’m telling you. And as  we exit out of wave three (the third  sale event in October), we don’t see  a slowdown,” Agarwal said. “The broader e-commerce story is  not just a Flipkart-Amazon battle. Of  course, both Flipkart and Amazon  are trying to get a fair share of the pie  in key categories such as electronics,  fashion and large appliances. And  despite drags on margins, nobody is  going to reduce investments in India.  What you will see, however, is that  they will focus on innovation. For  example, during the festive season,  smartphone sales shot up and a lot  of the sales jumped due to things  like product exchanges. Another  new innovation was something like  Amazon Prime. So, you’ll see a lot of  that going forward,” said Sreedhar  Prasad, partner-e-commerce at  KPMG