A new warehouse opened by Amazon in Mexico City on Thursday is the company’s largest delivery center in Latin America — at 30,000 square meters (7.4 acres), it is equivalent to six soccer fields.
Amazon now has 28 delivery centers in Mexico, including some where orders are stored, and others where orders get sorted geographically before being sent. Amazon also operates larger warehouses, known as “fulfillment centers,” which can be over 92,900 square meters (23 acres), including one near the outskirts of Mexico City in the Cuautitlán Izcalli municipality of México state.
The new Mexico City facility, tabbed “Amazon DXX1,” is a “last-mile” station that aims to bolster Amazon’s Mexico strategy of same-day delivery in 10 cities, one-day delivery in 80 cities and two-day delivery throughout the country.
According to Reuters, the e-commerce giant has invested 52 billion pesos (US $3 billion) in Mexico since launching here eight years ago, in its effort to attract more shoppers in Latin America’s second-biggest economy and beat competitors such as Argentina-based Mercado Libre and retail giant Walmart.
“Amazon’s investments underscore the importance of the United States–Mexico relationship,” U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said prior to Thursday’s ribbon-cutting at the warehouse, where a large Mexican flag hung above rows of wire storage racks and a conveyer belt.
Salazar praised Amazon for integrating Mexico into global digital commerce and strengthening North American supply chains. He said Amazon is helping small and medium-sized businesses and artisans in Mexico gain footing in the digital marketplace.
In addition, he said the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is a part of the equation, hailing it as “a durable framework that will integrate [Mexico] more and more into North America.”
At the Thursday ceremony, Diana Francés, general manager of Amazon Logistics in Mexico, celebrated not only the opening of the new center, but also how Amazon has helped establish inclusion and learning programs for communities in Mexico’s south and southeast. She said Amazon has invested 732 million pesos (US $42.9 million) in such programs since arriving in Mexico in 2015.
According to Reuters, Amazon operates about 40 warehouses in Mexico, employing more than 8,000 people directly and another 32,000 indirectly. Salazar said many of the jobs are in Mexico’s poorer southern regions, where President López Obrador has tried to ramp up development.
“There’s no corner forgotten for Amazon,” Salazar said. “It’s wherever you look in Mexico.”
With reports from Aristegui Noticias, Reuters and Forbes
