Amazon to invest IDR14 trillion into Indonesia

Amazon has plans to invest IDR14 trillion (SG$1.3 billion) into the Indonesia market to further bolster its presence in Southeast Asia following its entry into Singapore last year. The move will see the introduction of Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud computing unit, into the country.According to The Straits Times, the plan was expressed to Indonesian President Joko Widodo by Werner Vogels, Amazon VP, during a recent meeting. Finance minister Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, added the investment will be spread across 10 years. Amazon declined to comment went contacted by Marketing Interactive.Amazon’s move into Indonesia comes months after competitor Alibaba Cloud commenced operations for its first data centre in Indonesia. The launch was said at the time to be part of the brand’s ongoing commitment to support the Indonesia government’s initiative to create 1,000 startups by 2020. Plans for the data centre were first unveiled in June last year.Amazon’s entry into Indonesia will also see it competing with existing prominent players such as Tokopedia and Lazada, in which rival Alibaba too has seen involvement in the investment capacity.  Earlier this year, Alibaba invested an additional US$2 billion in Lazada Group to accelerate growth plans in Southeast Asia, and deepen integration into the Alibaba ecosystem. This brought the total amount invested in Lazada by Alibaba to US$4 billion, to date.Alibaba was also tipped to be investing in Tokopedia, one of Indonesia’s largest online marketplaces, reported Bloomberg at the time, which said that Alibaba was looking to lead a funding round of nearly US$500 million.(Photo courtesy: 123rf)