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— Copy of Delhivery Q4 FY26 earnings presentation

Delhivery co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Sahil Barua has cast doubt on whether Amazon’s newly launched third-party logistics business will deliver strategic value to the clients and customers it serves.

“The relative scale of Amazon’s in-house operations compared to any client who onboards themselves into Amazon logistics is going to be absolutely minuscule. So how do you get customer service at all?” Barua said during the company’s post-earnings call.

The comments come less than a fortnight after Amazon announced that businesses would be able to use its freight, distribution, fulfillment, and parcel shipping network, including for orders originating outside its e-commerce marketplace.

Amazon will always put itself first: According to management, Amazon will always put itself first, and captive logistics models disadvantage third-party merchants because networks built primarily for first-party orders would naturally prioritise Amazon’s shipments over those of external sellers.

“When it finally comes down to the process of deciding at the last mile which order has to be delivered, when a rider has to make a choice and is running out of time, the first-order order is of course going to get prioritised over any third party,” he said.

The cost problem: Barua noted that first-party logistics is more expensive than third-party logistics, even after accounting for the thin margins in the business.

“So I am not entirely clear why customers would willingly ship with a captive network that cannot prioritise their interests,” he told analysts during the earnings call.

Flipkart tried this; it didn’t work: eKart, Flipkart’s in-house logistics arm, offered 3PL services in 2016 to competitors like Paytm and ShopClues, but the business did not scale, partly because of concerns that customer data shared with the logistics arm could help Flipkart create private labels in high-demand categories. 

Moreover, eKart Logistics, a separate entity launched in 2009, was rolled back into the parent company in 2015.

Key operational metrics — (Q4 FY26)

• Active customers: Rose to 52,226 from 51,547 in Q3 FY26 and 44,290 in Q4 FY25.
• Express delivery centres: Stood at 4,088, compared to 3,881 in Q3 FY26 and 3,647 in Q4 FY25.
• Fleet size – daily average: Declined sequentially to 20,160 from 21,226.
• Last-mile delivery partner agents: Increased to 71,362 in Q4 FY26 from 71,174 in the December quarter.

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