1 year ago

With #BoycottZomato Trending, Now Would Be A Good Time For Amazon To Start A Food Delivery App

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Gwyn D'Mello
Gwyn D'MelloUpdated on Aug 01, 2019, 18:34 IST

As far as the food delivery sector in India goes, it's pretty saturated at the moment. Between Swiggy and Zomato, there isn't really much room for a new app to grow. And yet, one major corporation seems to be making a play for the market it seems.



According to Reuters, Amazon is planning to launch an online food delivery app in India, to take on Swiggy and Zomato. And they're not wasting time either, apparently you could see this new app before the festive season begins in September.

The piece indicates that the US giant is working with Catamaran, a venture capital firm set up by Infosys founder Narayana Murthy. Reuters quoted inside sources saying the company has already begun hiring staff for the platform. 

Additionally, separate reports indicate Amazon is in early talks to acquire UberEats, the food delivery app set up by Uber in India in 2017. That particular platform hasn't seen much growth at all, and has been stagnating for a while. 

Apparently Amazon will offer its food delivery as part of Prime memberships in the country.

Now the thing about Amazon is that it's so huge it has the freedom to experiment with this kind of service, even in an already-saturated market like India. And because of its other massive revenue streams, it can even afford to take the financial hit in order to offer steep discounts compared to other food delivery apps, at least at the start.


But aside from that, this might be the best possible time for the new of Amazon's venture to come out. You've probably seen the #BoycottZomato and #BoycottSwiggy trends on Twitter and Facebook lately. It's the fallout of a controversial incident, where a Hindu man cancelled a Zomato order because the delivery executive assigned to him was Muslim. 

The timing is just right

Since then, people have come out equally both for and against Zomato for sticking to their guns. They're also of course targeting UberEats with the same treatment for their support of Zomato. Meanwhile, people are tweeting about boycotting Swiggy because they haven't declared their support for Zomato in the incident, or threatening them with a boycott if and when they do. Aside from those talking about a boycott because of terrible food of course. 


Sure, there might not be a lot of people actually giving up Zomato for good, but there might be a decent number. That plus the fact that Amazon is such a recognizable and respected brand in general might be just the foothold they need in India.

Whether they're able to follow through is another question entirely, but they've succeeded in breaking into other markets in the past, like when they acquired streaming platform Twitch.

Honestly, if Amazon is seriously going to give this a shot, now is as good a time for them as any.

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