Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Would India Be The First Country For #Amazon To Launch Its Drone Delivery System?

Amazon's project to deliver its products by drones has made a lot of buzz. Of course, the idea is revolutionary, and the potential is great. But of course, so far, drone delivery remains a thoughtful dream, as there are little changes that it would be allowed in most of countries. Indeed, especially in nowadays angst about terrorists attack of all kind, governments have other issues to deal with than letting Amazon's project become a reality.

Nevertheless, in other less regulated countries it could have an opportunity to be launched first. And that could be India, according to French retailer magazine LSA. I remember that we had the same thought some years ago about the mobile phone market. Indeed, As India did not have a mature telecommunication network allowing the country to access High speed Internet with DSL or cable connections, India was supposed to be a laboratory of mobile devices Internet usage. I don't think it quite happened.

Hence I don't really think that launching such deliveries would be a good idea in India:

  • E commerce is not that much of a success in India so far. First things first: let's grow Ecommerce first, then find new innovative delivery systems. Especially as I don't think drones could actually accelerate the Ecommerce growth by itself.
  • A success story in India would be difficult to adapt to countries like the US, Europe, or even China.
  • The cost to launch the project will be gigantic, to have enough drones to have a comprehensive service, especially for a low usage.