With booming ecommerce in India companies face a stiff competition when it comes to acquire a larger customer base. They find ways to improve their service or reduce delivery time to enrich customer’s experience. In one such move Amazon Inc is said to be in talks to acquire a 75% stake in Blue Dart which would cost around $2 Bn.
The deal is said to be at a nascent stage and if the deal fructifies it will help Amazon expand its overall customer reach, boost its delivery services and will also have an edge over Flipkart and Snapdeal.
Blue Dart has a domestic network covering over 34,248 locations, and service more than 220 countries. It also owns warehouses at 72 locations across the country as well as bonded warehouses at the 7 metros including Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Hyderabad.
Blue Dart leads the domestic air express market with a 52% share and fleet of six aircraft. Blue Dart Express was acquired by DHL in FY05 through its Singapore subsidiary DHL Express. It handles all domestic consignments on its own, however its international outbound consignments are routed through DHL.
According to Dipan Mehta who holds a minority Stake in DHL says,”Blue Dart might not be better off without DHL as it is the latter which brings to the table in terms of brands, systems and global connectivity not something which Amazon can match.”
