Amazon opening London based R&D centre

Amazon's business expansion is looking to go multi-national, especially in the UK. Announced today, the retail giant plans to open a new R&D centre in London, with an emphasis on development of services relating to TVs, consoles, smartphones and PCs.

As well as fostering other businesses in the Glasshouse Yard facility, Amazon will be pulling its other UK businesses under one roof, centreing both streaming and DVD movie rental service Lovefilm and TV app firm Pushbutton in one location. Current managing director at Pushbutton, Paula Byrne, is set to take on the same role as head of the new R&D centre, according to TechCrunch.

The online retailer has expanded its business massively in the past few years, becoming a big player in the eBook market, before joining companies like Apple in the tablet game with the Kindle Fire. Across the pond, its cloud storage services are also doing well – despite recent outages – but internationally its not quite as dominant. Opening a new facility in the UK not only allows it to foster potential buyouts further down the line – as Amazon did when selling its DVD rental business to LoveFilm before buying it back later on –  but gives the company a physical locale to help further develop its products and brand in Europe.

KitGuru Says: Considering Amazon already monopolises the eBook market in the UK, the potential for it to spread into other areas is massive. Smartphones, tablets, cloud storage, the UK is ripe for the picking and fostering homegrown developments is a good way to ingratiate startup businesses and individuals with a brand.

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