DUBAI: Amazon has offered a 10 percent cash-back incentive, even on returned items, for customers in India who post orders via the retail giant’s online payment platform.
The Amazon Pay offer, valid only once for each customer, is applicable not only on transactions within the Amazon platform but also across third-party sellers.
Amazon has tie-ups with vendors such as Café Coffee Day, Amar Chitra Katha, Innerchef, Fasoos, and Housejoy.
Sriram Jagannathan, the vice president for payments at Amazon India, described offers as part of the effort to enhance shopping experience.
“Our aim is to improve the digital payment experiences for customers buying on our marketplace … we provide offers to customers to try this experience,” he said.
Amazon aims to make a major presence in India’s rapid shift to online and mobile shopping, which is estimated to grow to $47 billion in 2020 from only $10 billion in 2015, and is hedging on promotions such as the cash-back offer to attract customers away from major rival Flipkart.
Snapdeal, another Indian online retailer, has reportedly accepted Flipkart’s revised takeover offer of up to $950 million (SR3.56 billion), and would give the homegrown brand some breathing space in tightening contest for India’s online marketplace.
Amazon has invested about $600 million in its Indian business unit since January, mostly to build up its seller base that has now reached 200,000, a payments unit and for putting up infrastructure.
Amazon India offers 10% cash-back scheme for Amazon Pay customers
Amazon India offers 10% cash-back scheme for Amazon Pay customers
Saudi Arabia aims to become world’s largest AI token exporter: Humain CEO
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is aiming to become the world’s largest exporter of artificial intelligence tokens as it accelerates efforts to position itself as a regional and global technology hub, according to a senior executive.
Speaking at the PIF Private Sector Forum, Tareq Amin, CEO of Humain, said the Kingdom has the necessary resources including abundant energy supplies and strong geographic connectivity to establish itself as a global AI powerhouse.
His remarks align with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 strategy, which seeks to transform the Kingdom into a leading regional technology hub by the end of the decade.
Humain “is a company that has an ambition to become a global player in this important space. We are an AI total value chain company. Focussed from Humain core, which is our data centers. These are not small data centers. We are talking about gigawatt capacity,” Amin said.
He emphasized the critical role of energy in artificial intelligence development, adding: “AI is an energy game. We have power, energy affordability and abundance, connectivity, land, and water. We have all that it needs to translate Saudi Arabia to the world’s largest AI token exporter.”
Amin also revealed that Saudi Arabia plans to launch and commercialize its own operating system in the coming months, potentially becoming the third country after the US and China to do so.
“One thing I was deciding, whether to show you this here, but we have a big event coming in LEAP and we will commercialize this. In the last meeting that we had with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, he was referring to operating systems, whether using Windows or Mac,” he said.
“Saudi Arabia will be the first country outside the US and China that will commercialize its own operating system,” Amin added.
In January, Humain agreed to a financing framework of up to $1.2 billion to expand AI and digital infrastructure across the Kingdom. The non-binding agreement outlines financing terms to develop up to 250 megawatts of AI data center capacity to serve Humain’s local, regional, and global customers.
In December, the company partnered with Saudi Telecom Co. to form a joint venture focused on developing and operating AI-driven data centers in Saudi Arabia. According to a Tadawul filing, Humain will hold a 51 percent stake in the venture, while stc will own the remaining 49 percent.
