Seattle-based online retailer Amazon, which is considered to be the largest online retailer globally, seems to be making deeper inroads into India and wants to hire atleast 5,000 people at its facility in Hyderabad.

At the moment, there are almost 4,000 employees working for the company’s R&D and tech support division from the city. Amazon is also looking at setting its logistics centre in Hyderabad and had chosen it over Bangalore. This could be the next step after it establishes base in its own premise.

The company had established here in 2005 by way of joining hands with the Andhra Pradesh government. It was then allotted ten acres of land near the outskirts of state capital, which is now under a legal tussle.

The agreement was to employ at least 1,750 professions. However, later Amazon did not utilize the land and now has leased office space of 1.5 lakh sq ft for this current year. It would further require another 500,000 sq ft of leased space for the expansion in the next two years. It may although want to build its own facility at the entangled land, instead of leasing space.

Estimates suggest that developing a commercial space in the allotted land could cost upto Rs 2,000 per sq ft. The land went into trouble as it was encroached by adjoining villagers. The issue is now pending before the AP high Court and the government says it could take at least a month before it is resolved. John Schoettler from Amazon was here in Hyderabad to meet the government officials.

Amazon, which hires around 56,000 people globally, had total annual revenue of at $48 billion for the last financial year. Meanwhile, the Hyderabad facility has registered a turnover of Rs 183 crores for the last fiscal. The AP government says that Amazon has shown cumulative revenue of Rs 473 Crores from 2005 to 2011.

Feb 16, 2012