International courier company to test Indian waters

Chennai:

After building on 18 years of international experience, international courier and freight services company AJ Worldwide Services is now planning to test the Indian waters.

Addressing a press conference here V S Sree Pragassh said that the courier company is planning to tap five cities initially with 41 delivery locations and later expand its operations to 100 cities within next three years.

He said the domestic courier services have evolved over the years and is worth Rs 10,000 crore. “With the demand for efficient and fast movement of documents, samples and commercial shipments, the industry is currently growing at a phenomenal rate of over 12 per cent,” said Pragassh.

Although the domestic sector could be an altogether a different turf for AJW, which has been successful in the international sector, Pragassh is positive and feels the company could have a turnover worth Rs 12 crore in the first year. “We are investing Rs 10 crore in the domestic sector and hope the initial business in the first year would be worth Rs 12 crore and it could double to Rs 24 crore in the first three years,” he added.

He feels AJW’s international business when integrated with domestic courier network will offer Indian corporates an opportunity to move goods safely and in multiple transit times to multiple ports in the country and deliver them across India using their own domestic network.

He feels a unique feature that is currently unavailable in the market is the option to the customer of air or ground service for document movement. He said his company would be offering the services.

“The integration of the international network with the new domestic network will bring a tremendous advantage with respect to cost and transit time. Following international standards, we will continue to maintain our strengths in transparency, handling of goods and accuracy staying compliant to the Indian market,” said Thomas Mathew, associate director of AJW.