Amazon plans 100 mall kiosks in India

E-commerce giant Amazon plans to roll out more than 100 kiosks in malls across India that will sell its devices such as the Kindle ebook reader, the Echo speaker and the Fire TV dongle by the end of the year.

The US company first experimented with such kiosks two years ago in Bengaluru and has been operating four of them - two in the Karnataka capital and one each in Mumbai and Ahmedabad - for more than a year. Last week, Amazon opened its fifth kiosk in Logix Mall in Noida.

It's looking for more space elsewhere, said mall operators. Right now, they are looking for 70-80 sq ft kiosk space.

A top mall executive said the Amazon kiosks will be run by third-party franchisees. Earlier this month, Amazon said it was closing more than 80 popup stores in US malls after years of trials with the concept.

Amazon had received government approval to sell locally produced and packaged food items through both offline and online channels in India in July 2017. However, it is yet to open any food-only brick-and-mortar stores. Amazon Retail India Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the US online retailer, is currently selling food items on Amazon.in.