Amazon's Indian operations grew their revenue in the 2025-26 financial year but lost considerably more money doing so, according to regulatory filings analysed by Inc42 and published on 28 September 2026. The combined net loss of Amazon's main Indian entities widened 47.9 per cent to ₹2,792.8 crore, from ₹1,888.8 crore a year earlier. Combined operating revenue across those entities reached ₹39,144.3 crore, edging towards the ₹40,000 crore mark.
The headline hides a more nuanced picture. Amazon's core marketplace in India is becoming steadily more efficient. The increase in losses comes almost entirely from newer bets, above all its push into quick commerce and its efforts to remain relevant in UPI-dominated digital payments.
Unit by unit
Amazon operates in India through several separate legal entities, reflecting the country's foreign direct investment rules for e-commerce, which bar foreign-owned marketplaces from holding inventory and selling directly to consumers.
Amazon Seller Services, the marketplace business, reported operating revenue of ₹34,966.8 crore, up 15.1 per cent. Its net loss narrowed by 4.5 per cent to ₹389.9 crore. This unit earns money from services to third-party sellers, including commissions, subscriptions, advertising, logistics and marketing support. Its improving results suggest the marketplace model is gradually approaching profitability as advertising and fulfilment revenues grow.
Amazon Retail India, which operates the quick-commerce service Amazon Now and the grocery business Amazon Fresh, reported operating revenue of ₹3,065.1 crore, up 49.5 per cent. But its net loss rose almost threefold to ₹1,158.3 crore, from ₹394.2 crore a year earlier. Its cost of goods increased 64 per cent to ₹2,887.9 crore, outpacing sales growth and squeezing margins. This unit was the single largest driver of the group's deteriorating bottom line.
Amazon Pay reported operating revenue of ₹2,484.4 crore, up 18.5 per cent from ₹2,096.6 crore. Its net loss widened 32.7 per cent to ₹1,148.5 crore. Payment-processing fees rose 35 per cent to ₹1,140.6 crore, while advertising and sales-promotion spending, including cashbacks and customer incentives, increased 11 per cent to ₹1,767.6 crore. Together, those two expense lines accounted for nearly four-fifths of the unit's total costs.
Amazon Wholesale India, which supplies goods to sellers, reported operating revenue of ₹1,693.1 crore, down 43.4 per cent. Its net loss narrowed 56.5 per cent to ₹96.1 crore, consistent with the scaling back of a business that has been constrained by changes to e-commerce regulations.
The quick-commerce bill arrives
The sharp rise in Amazon Retail's losses reflects the economics of quick commerce, the model of delivering groceries and daily essentials within minutes from dense networks of small urban warehouses known as dark stores.
Quick commerce has been the fastest-growing segment of Indian retail over the past three years, led by Blinkit (owned by Eternal, formerly Zomato), Swiggy's Instamart and Zepto. Amazon and Flipkart entered the segment later, launching their own services to defend their relationship with urban consumers who increasingly buy everyday items through ten-minute delivery apps.
Catching up requires heavy spending. Each dark store requires rent, staff and inventory, and it becomes profitable only once order density in its catchment is high enough. New entrants also typically subsidise deliveries and discounts to win customers from established players. Amazon Retail's 49.5 per cent revenue growth shows the service is gaining traction, but the near tripling of losses shows how expensive that traction is.
Payments: running to stand still
Amazon Pay's numbers tell a different story. The business is growing revenue, but it is losing ground in the market that matters most. In August 2026, Amazon Pay processed 95.93 million UPI transactions, giving it a market share of just 0.39 per cent, according to retail intelligence data.
UPI is dominated by PhonePe and Google Pay, with Paytm a distant third. Because consumer UPI payments have generated little direct revenue, payment apps have competed largely on incentives and convenience, and scale has become self-reinforcing. For smaller players such as Amazon Pay, cashbacks and promotions are a costly way to hold users.
Amazon Pay has responded by shifting emphasis towards lending, credit and insurance products, where margins are higher than in pure payments. It has expanded its Pay Later offering and insurance distribution. The introduction of a merchant discount rate on larger UPI payments from 15 October could modestly improve the revenue picture for payment providers, but it is unlikely to change Amazon Pay's position among the market leaders on its own.
Reading the numbers
For Amazon, the Indian losses are small relative to the parent company's global profits, and the group has consistently signalled a long-term commitment to India. In December 2025, it said it planned to invest more than $35 billion in the country across its businesses by 2030.
The FY26 filings show where that money is going. The company is funding growth in quick commerce and financial services from a marketplace business that is itself close to breakeven. That is a familiar pattern for large platforms: use the established business as a base, then invest heavily to avoid being displaced by newer models of shopping.
The risk is that the new bets remain unprofitable for longer than planned. Quick commerce is intensely competitive, and the leading players have scale advantages in dark-store density and brand recognition. There are also rising labour pressures. Retail intelligence reports have noted demands by warehouse workers for higher wages amid rising food and fuel costs, which could add to operating expenses across the sector.
What the filings mean for Indian e-commerce
Amazon India's results mirror a broader shift in the country's online retail market. The battle is no longer only about who has the widest selection or the fastest two-day delivery. It is about who controls the daily, high-frequency purchase, whether that is milk and vegetables delivered in ten minutes or a UPI payment made at a neighbourhood store.
Flipkart faces similar pressures with its own quick-commerce and fintech ambitions, and both companies must contend with specialists that have built their businesses around those categories from the start.
For investors and policymakers, the filings show that even the world's largest e-commerce company cannot buy its way to leadership in India's newest retail formats quickly or cheaply. For consumers, the competition is good news, at least while it continues to fund faster delivery and generous offers.
The key numbers to watch in FY27 will be whether Amazon Retail's losses begin to narrow as dark stores mature, and whether Amazon Pay's move into credit can offset its weak position in payments.
