E-commerce giant Amazon is set to venture into the Indian food delivery market to take on Zomato and Swiggy. The launch of this new service could happen in March, as reported by TechCrunch. This move comes a month after Uber Eats, the food delivery arm of Uber Technologies in India, was acquired by Zomato.
Amazon's food delivery service will be offered as a part of Amazon Prime subscription or via Amazon Fresh platform. The report by TechCrunch cites an anonymous source familiar with the matter, which reveals that the service is being tested with some restaurants in Bangalore ahead of the launch.
In an official statement by a spokesperson, Amazon says, "We believe in innovating on behalf of our customers to create newer experiences for them. As part of this commitment, we are constantly evaluating new areas and opportunities to connect with and serve our customers. We will come back to you when we have something to announce."
Amazon food delivery service: What it means for India?
Recently, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos visited India and announced the company's investment of over $1 billion in an attempt to help SMBs (Small and Medium Businesses) sell online. The company already operates food and grocery delivery service, Amazon Fresh via Prime Now that was announced in August 2019 and competes with services like Grofers and Big Basket.
Amazon's primary asset is its Prime subscription, which offers a bouquet of services like the abovementioned Prime Now grocery delivery. The upcoming food delivery service is also expected to fall under this umbrella, which would mean that you only need to have a Prime subscription to access the service.
Amazon has a tough task ahead as restaurant and cloud kitchen owners have been dissatisfied with the existing services and have often criticized them for promoting aggressive deals and offers for users at the behest of huge losses for restaurateurs.
Amazon has been working on its food delivery service in India for quite some time now and was previously looking to launch it in Diwali 2019, but incidentally got delayed.
After Uber Eats' exit from India, the food delivery market looks ripe for a new player that may offer some respite to the owners of food businesses across India.
Amazon's rival in India Flipkart also announced last year that it would enter the retail food business dubbed as Flipkart Farmermart and, according to a fresh report, is already trialing the service with the delivery of fruits and groceries.
