In a nutshell
While Chinese platforms like Temu and Shein gain market share in Europe, Amazon continues to invest in its European infrastructure at record levels – more than €60 billion in 2025 alone, plus already committed pledges of roughly €68 to 70 billion for the coming years. We’ve compiled the most important individual investments of the past 12 to 18 months – from the catch-up race in Benelux and Poland to the quiet expansion in Germany and the new robotics generation set to transform Amazon’s fulfilment centres across Europe.
⏱ Time to Read: appr. 5 min
The Backdrop: New Competition from China
Chinese platforms are visibly gaining ground in Europe – that’s what our own analysis of the EU Transparency Reports shows. Particularly striking: in Poland, Amazon’s user penetration stands at just 9.8 percent, while Temu already reaches 36.2 percent and AliExpress as much as 40.2 percent. In Spain and Italy too, AliExpress and Shein are long past being minor players. Amazon itself acknowledged the pressure in December 2025: the company cut seller fees for European sellers in low-cost fashion and accessories categories – a notable move openly attributed to competition from Temu and Shein.
Against this backdrop, it’s worth taking a closer look at the raw numbers: Amazon invested more than €60 billion in Europe in 2025 alone, according to its own figures – the highest annual sum in the company’s history on the continent. And that doesn’t look like a one-off: adding up only the country commitments already put a figure on for the coming years – the UK, France, Poland, the Netherlands and Belgium – comes to a rough total of around €68 to 70 billion. That’s a cautious approximation across slightly different time frames, not an official Amazon total, but it shows the scale at which Amazon continues to entrench itself across Europe.
The most important individual investments in detail follow below:
Benelux vs. bol
In the Netherlands and Belgium, bol holds the market leadership – the only larger Western European markets where that’s still the case. Amazon is responding with a combined €2.4 billion-plus for the coming years: more than €1.4 billion for the Netherlands, more than €1 billion for Belgium.
The investments target precisely the areas where bol holds its edge: faster delivery, a broader product range, improved AI tools for sellers, and a better customer experience. In Belgium, part of the money also goes toward expanding same-day delivery. Amazon itself never names bol directly as the target – publicly, it always speaks of “investments in customers and selling partners.”
Poland vs. Allegro
Allegro holds 38.8 percent of Polish retail e-commerce, according to Euromonitor, while Amazon manages only 3.9 percent. Amazon’s answer: more than €5 billion for the years 2026 to 2028 – on top of the more than €10 billion already invested in the country since 2012.
A central building block is a new robotic fulfillment centre in Lower Silesia. Unlike in Benelux, Amazon is additionally expanding its Prime offering in Poland, including locally produced Prime Video content – a tool that directly targets Allegro’s strong loyalty and entertainment ecosystem.
A second effect extends beyond the Polish market itself: Poland also serves as a central logistics hub for Amazon across Central Europe. A strong fulfilment network there is likely to improve not just Amazon’s position against Allegro, but also delivery capability into neighbouring countries such as the Czech Republic or Slovakia.
Germany: The Quiet Expansion of a Secured Market
Notably, unlike the UK, France, Poland, the Netherlands and Belgium, Germany – Amazon’s largest market in continental Europe – has received no new, figured billion-euro commitment in the past 12 to 18 months. Germany country manager Rocco Bräuniger declined to commit to a specific figure for 2025/26 in autumn 2025, though he spoke of continued “very, very strong” investment.
The last known figure is a retrospective one, not a forward pledge: in 2024, Amazon invested around €14 billion in Germany, according to its own figures – roughly €2 billion more than in 2023. Cumulatively since 2010, the total stands at around €90 billion.
The expansion is visible more at individual sites than in big headlines. The most recent example: Pforzheim. There, Amazon is converting its logistics centre for more than €300 million – from a warehouse for medium-sized items into a site for small and medium-sized products with capacity for around 20 million items. New sites in Horn-Bad Meinberg, Erfurt and Dummerstorf were also added in 2024; Bietigheim, Könnern and Rohr are announced for 2025/26.
👉 Marketplace Universe Insight: Not every billion-euro figure Amazon announces for Europe concerns the marketplace business. Spain illustrates this clearly: the €33.7 billion announced in March 2026 flows entirely into cloud and AI infrastructure, according to Amazon – with no connection to the retail business at all. Placing that sum alongside the countries where Amazon is fighting for market share means comparing two entirely different business areas.
Amazon, the Innovation Engine
The possibly most consequential building block of recent months is a new investment of more than €10 billion in a new robotics generation for the European fulfilment network, announced by Amazon in June 2026. Three technologies are at the centre of it:
Proteus: Amazon’s autonomous transport robot. It moves heavy carts and loads independently through the warehouse. What’s new is that the current generation can now be deployed anywhere goods need to be moved, not just in loading areas. Employees will also be able to direct it using plain spoken language rather than technical commands.
Vulcan: Amazon’s first robot with a sense of touch. This matters technically because precisely gripping individual, differently shaped items – without damaging them – has long been one of the biggest hurdles for warehouse robotics. Vulcan is designed to close exactly that gap.
STARK: A powerful transfer robot. First piloted in Barcelona, it handles moving entire boxes from the conveyor belt onto transport carts. By 2027, the system is set to be rolled out to 15 sites across Europe.
For fulfilment centres, this translates concretely into: faster order processing, fewer picking errors, and more capacity without each additional item requiring proportionally more staff. Amazon itself emphasises that employees can focus more on inventory management and quality control instead of physically demanding routine work.
The investment is accompanied by two further commitments: 25,000 new jobs in European fulfilment over the coming years, and a training fund worth $1 billion (around €860 million) through 2030, supporting qualifications in logistics, cybersecurity and software development, among other areas.
Conclusion
What these numbers show overall: despite growing competition from Temu, Shein and other Chinese platforms, Amazon remains by far the largest driver of infrastructure and innovation in European e-commerce. Rather than reacting to the new competition, Amazon is above all expanding what has long been its greatest strength: a logistics and technology edge that’s hard to match with capital alone – whether by Chinese platforms or by local market leaders like bol or Allegro.
Key Learnings
- Amazon invested more than €60 billion in Europe in 2025, according to its own figures – a record level
- Further committed country pledges (UK, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium) add up to roughly €68 to 70 billion for the coming years
- Two cases can be read as targeted catch-up efforts: Benelux against bol and Poland against Allegro
- Poland has both Amazon’s lowest penetration in Europe (9.8%) and one of the largest Temu and AliExpress shares
- Germany received no new billion-euro commitment recently – the expansion shows up more at individual sites
- Spain’s €33.7 billion is pure cloud/AI infrastructure, unrelated to the retail business
- The new €10 billion robotics generation (Proteus, Vulcan, STARK) is set to roll out to 15 sites by 2027 and, according to Amazon, will create 25,000 new jobs – an efficiency leap that’s hard to match with capital alone
Enjoyed this article? The Marketplace Universe Weekly is our free newsletter – every Monday, the latest marketplace news, platform updates, our newest posts, and the insights that matter, delivered straight to your inbox. So you never miss a thing. 👉 Subscribe here: https://marketplace-universe.com/newsletter/