India’s rising e-commerce transactions coupled with the effect of introducing GST, the consolidated tax regime, will boost freight movement, and Deutsche Post DHL Group is getting warehouses ready for future business.
India’s e-commerce market, which currently logs 1.2 million transactions daily, is estimated to jump 31 percent annually over 2017-2020 to $80 billion, tax and advisory services company KPMG said in an August 2016 report. According to Knight Frank India Private Limited, the total warehousing requirement in the country’s top seven markets will rise to 839 million square feet by 2020 from about 621 million in 2016.
“We see business-to-consumer as the next big challenge, a big growth area and we really want to tap into that through businesses such as modern retail,” said Vikas Anand, Mumbai-based managing director at DHL Supply Chain India Pvt. Anand added that the company has an 8 to 10 percent share of the $3.5 billion Indian market, reports Bloomberg.
DHL India says its sales have grown at about 30 percent annually over the past five years, double its estimate of the contract-logistics industry average, and that it expects to maintain its pace. It plans to invest more than $100 million in additional capacity in the next three to four years. It also intends to bolster its transportation network by using railroads where it can to improve time and fuel cost efficiency.
