Amazon to manufacture Fire TV Stick devices in Chennai, cut short dependency on China

Reducing its dependence on China, Amazon India announced on Tuesday that it will soon start manufacturing Fire TV Stick in India, marking the first device ever to be made in the nation. Later this year in Chennai it will partnership with Foxconn's subsidiary, Cloud Network Technology. This would strengthen 'Make in India' initiative. Earlier, Amazon was largely sourcing its Fire TV Stick from China and Taiwan for the India market.

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Amazon had launched an updated version of the Fire TV Stick along with the Fire TV stick lite. It comes with enhanced features including full- HD streaming, HDR support and Dolby Atmos, and more. The device starts at Rs 2999 in India.

Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad announced the news on Twitter and said Amazon will commence manufacturing of electronics products in India.

The minister also put out a series of tweets about the virtual discussion and said he had asked Amazon India to help in taking products made by Indian artisans and Ayurvedic products to global markets through its platform.

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He also urged the e-commerce major to also select a few villages in India and develop them as fully digital villages and said this will further our mission of creating an Atmanirbhar Bharat which is digitally empowered.

Talking about Amazon’s decision to produce Fire Stick in India, Prasad said that under PM Modi's leadership India is attracting some of the biggest investment giants. 

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Amit Agarwal, Global SVP and Country Leader for Amazon India twisted and announced about the device said this step will reiterate our commitment to ‘Make in India'.

"Amazon is committed to partner with the Indian government to advance the vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat. We have pledged to invest the US $1 billion to digitize 10 million small and medium businesses, help Indian businesses sell worldwide thereby enabling US $10B in cumulative exports, and create additional 1MM jobs by 2025", said Agarwal

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Aatmanirbhar Bharat push

Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Union government has placed much importance on going "vocal for local" while also encouraging startups and entrepreneurship culture to develop in the country. The Government has highlighted the need for manufacturing indigenous products to give a boost to the country's economy and moving towards self-reliance while the Union Budget 2021 also pledged enough funds for infrastructure in this regard.