For clearer, more insightful business and economic news, subscribe to The Daily Upside newsletter. It’s completely free, and we guarantee you’ll learn something new every day.
As India’s population poised to overtake China’s, Amazon sees signs of rupee…
Amazon announced on Monday that it will launch its airfreight business, Amazon Air, in India, making it the first e-commerce company in the country to have its own “dedicated airfreight network”.
flip script
Amazon’s air-freight business first took off in 2016, but a former employee told Wired that its roots go back to 2014, when the company found crates full of Kindles and was desperate to deliver them to people who met at the Seattle airport. to bottleneck customers. With a fleet of more than 200 flights a day as of December 2022, Amazon’s breakneck speed at building up its air cargo business is typical of Amazon — and it’s the main reason why it faced protests from Amazon Air employees recently over the summer.
India is an important market for Amazon, but the tech giant isn’t the only show in town. Its e-commerce archrival is Flipkart, which has historically captured a larger market share and just so happens to be backed by Walmart. Using planes to move goods across India’s vast geography gives Amazon an advantage in speed, which has been its guiding principle:
- Amazon said it was partnering with local airline Quikjet to operate flights between the cities of Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai.
- Amazon Air already operates in the US and Europe, making India its third-largest market.Amazon didn’t say how much it cost start up India’s skies, but the planes are expensive, and given the historic cost-cutting campaign the company is currently undertaking, it must believe that the bet will pay off.
Fly in the sun: In other aviation news, Airbus is getting into the telecommunications business. The French airline has hired Morgan Stanley to help spin off a plan to build solar-powered drones.The idea is that drones will cruise around the globe, well above the altitudes commercial aircraft fly, much like satellites quite in space. An exciting concept, although Airbus has some work to do if drones are to become permanent fixtures in our skies – its last crashed after 64 days of continuous flight. Heartbreakingly, the drone is just hours away from breaking the world record for flight endurance. Best of luck next time, little one.