Amazon Picks Indian City Of Hyderabad To Set Up Largest Delivery Center Outside Of US

Global e-commerce giant Amazon has announced that it would build its second-largest global delivery center — and the largest outside of the U.S. — in Hyderabad, the capital city of the southern Indian state of Telangana, local media reported Friday. The move came a year after the company said it would build its biggest Indian warehouse near Hyderabad.

A senior government official of Telangana told the Economic Times, a local business newspaper, that the Seattle-based company had been allotted a 10-acre parcel of land for the proposed 2.9 million square-feet delivery center, designed to house 13,500 people. The current headcount at Amazon development centre in Hyderabad is about 1,000 across multiple offices.

Friday’s announcement by the U.S. retailer highlighted growing interest among Silicon Valley giants in Telangana, an erstwhile part of the state of Andhra Pradesh in the Southern part of India. In February, iPhone maker Apple also announced that it would set up its largest technology development center outside the U.S. in Hyderabad. Microsoft and Google also recently detailed plans for building campuses in the city.

Sources cited by local media said that construction on Amazon’s warehouse, also referred to as a “fulfillment centers,” will start on March 30.

Fulfillment centers, often located near airports are used to collect, sort and dispatch customer orders from Amazon as well as third-party vendors, who avail Amazon’s vast warehousing system for a fee.

Amazon currently operates 21 such warehouses over 10 states in India. In 2014, the company had announced $2 billion investment to boost its India operations.