Amazon venturing into food-delivery business to take on Swiggy, Zomato
After taking over online shopping and web services, Amazon is gearing up to venture into India's heavily crowded food-tech market. The folks at Reuters have learned that the Jeff Bezos-owned internet giant is in the process of stepping into the online food delivery. The move will take the company straight against leading food-tech start-ups operating in the country, including Zomato and Swiggy. Here's more.
Amazon has started setting up food deliver operations
Evidently, two unnamed sources familiar with the internal development at Amazon revealed its plan to foray into online food delivery. They denied providing specific details but said the company is working with IT industrialist Narayana Murthy's company Catamaran to set up and start the service for delivering food from restaurants. One of the two individuals claimed Amazon has started hiring for the new operation.
Plan to launch this year itself
According to the sources, Amazon's food delivery service should be up and running by September, just before India's festive season. They added the move will not only help Amazon expand its footprint in the Indian market but also boost the consumption of its other services. Perhaps, it might offer free deliveries for those taking Prime subscription, thereby boosting the consumption of Prime Video/Music too.
However, no official confirmation yet
Neither Amazon India nor Catamaran has commented or confirmed the report so far. However, if the e-commerce giant is actually venturing in food-tech, it would be interesting to see how it fares against already existing players in the arena. This includes a number of start-ups, including Tencent-backed Swiggy, Sequoia-backed Zomato, Uber Technologies' UberEats, Ola-owned Foodpanda, Faasos, Freshmenu et al.
India's food delivery market has grown phenomenally
The report of Amazon venturing into food delivery in India comes a month after the company closed similar operations in the US, owing to excessive competition. However, for India, the move makes sense as the market is already growing, thanks to the contribution of the Indian middle class. Last year, the number of online food orders grew by a whopping 176% in the country.
