Blue Dart Express Limited, the Indian domestic air express market leader, has announced the launchof its ground express service, SURFACELINE, in the country to try to overtake larger road express
companies and become the sector leader.Blue Dart said it has already established its market leadership in the domestic air expresssegment with a market share of 41.7% and continues to be the only player offering an unrivalleddomestic air payload of 300 tonnes per night. Blue Dart has been continually investing in buildinga sustainable and robust infrastructure ahead of the curve to support its business, and helpfacilitate the trade and commerce of this country.
It reaches out to 14,600 locations with its current air express network, and the new groundinfrastructure will augment its capability through expansion to 17,500 locations. This newinitiative will enable Blue Dart to extend its leadership position in air express to the groundexpress segment over the next five years.
Speaking on the occasion of the launch, Anil Khanna, Managing Director Blue Dart Express,said: “Our objective is to be the unmatched, premium, complete end-to-end service provider in thedomestic distribution space, focussing on the needs of the business customer. The rapidly improvingroad infrastructure provides us with an opportunity to achieve this goal. We plan to invest Rs 1000crore approximately over the short to medium term in air infrastructure, aircraft, and ramping upof ground infrastructure with state-of-the art facilities, transit hubs, with hi-tech materialhandling equipments among others. Currently we have a modest market share in the ground segment,but aim to leapfrog over other players to achieve market leadership in the express industry overthe next five years.”
In addition to improvement in the road infrastructure, the growing Indian economy warrantsmore efficient logistics support. “The Tier II and Tier III cities offer increasing opportunitiesfor Blue Dart’s Surfaceline. Owing to the growing affluence of consumers, these areas witnessedrapid growth in demand in the recent past. The emergence of SEZs, EPUs and IT parks also presentexciting prospects for our new service,” added Anil Khanna.
Malcolm Monteiro, Senior Vice President & Area Director – South Asia, DHL said: “India ison the fast lane to growth. With increasing trade opportunities, DHL is well positioned to providecustomers in India with true end-to-end solutions across domestic and international express,covering air and now road express. With the SurfaceLine launch both Blue Dart and DHL customers canaccess the widest network of locations in India. We expect SurfaceLine to further enhance ourdomestic offering in India and become integral to our strategy for the country.”
Under the product expansion, Blue Dart said it would in future have over 17,500 locations,over 1 million sq ft of warehousing space with 58 warehouses across India by 2010, GPS-enabledvehicles for real-time tracking and monitoring, and a road network control centre at its Mumbaihead office. Extra staff, including Express Sales Associates (ESA) to support the roll-out of thenew service, will be taken on.
“Blue Dart will soon be entering its 25th year of operation. In these years, we havesucceeded in building a business model that is still unmatched in the country. For SurfaceLine,too, we are investing to provide Blue Dart’s trademark reliability and service excellence to theground express segment”, said Anil Khanna.
