Globally, even the most advanced markets remain in early stages. In the United States, where companies like Amazon and Walmart are actively experimenting with drone deliveries, penetration is still less than 0.1 per cent. The opportunity is massive, but the business is still evolving. India, in that sense, is not late, in fact on time or even early.
Serving varied Markets
Vinay breaks down the drone ecosystem into five segments. The first is enterprise applications. These include power line inspection, thermal fault detection and infrastructure monitoring. Amber Wings is working with engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) players, such as Resonia, deploying drones that are as much about data as they are about flight. Unlike many players focusing only on hardware, Amber Wings is building a cloud-first analytics layer. Drones collect data in the field, which is then processed on the cloud to generate actionable insights and reports for clients. In a rare move for the industry, the company’s enterprise partner provided advance funding for development, signalling confidence as well as validating the commercial potential of specialised drone solutions.
The second is defence, covering surveillance, logistics, kamikaze drones and anti-drone systems. While the opportunity is significant, Vinay believes the current approach is incomplete. Everyone is focusing on hardware. But the real differentiation is AI, he points out. The brain of the drone has to be indigenous.
The third is government services, including mapping and land surveys. However, this segment remains heavily tender-driven, limiting scalability and long-term value creation. The fourth is agriculture, where activity is high but profitability is low. The model is largely service-based, with startups investing in equipment and operations while customers pay per acre. The fifth, and most promising, is urban logistics.
Future of delivery – 20 Minutes, 25 Paise
For Vinay, this is where India can leapfrog. Urban logistics spans e-commerce, heavy logistics and healthcare. Amber Wings is already engaging across these areas, including trials with quick-commerce platforms like Zepto and partnerships with hospitals. He points to a simple example, “in today’s quick-commerce ecosystem, platforms like Zepto have already reshaped expectations. In one instance, a team member travelling for a meeting was able to order a formal shirt and receive it within 20 minutes, something that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.”
The next question, Vinay argues, is what happens when drones are layered onto this system.“If hyperlocal delivery has compressed timelines from hours to minutes, drones can compress them further, particularly in mid-mile logistics where traffic becomes a bottleneck. More importantly, they can do so at significantly lower cost,” stresses Vinay. Transporting goods via drones can cost less than Rs 1 per kg per kilometre and potentially as low as 25 paise as the payload increases. At the same time, delivery times drop from hours to under 20 minutes in congested urban environments.
In healthcare, the impact is immediate. Blood samples that currently take hours to reach central labs can be transported multiple times a day, improving diagnosis speed while reducing costs. He cautioned that without rapid adoption, organisations would continue to incur losses due to inefficiencies and rising fuel costs.
The Challenges
Despite strong potential, three key challenges persist. First is awareness, as many industries are still unaware of integrating drones into operations. Second is policy clarity. While regulations have improved since 2021, scaling across cities needs better alignment between regulators and operators. Third, and most critical, is fleet ownership. As Vinay notes, the lack of clear financing and ownership models limit large-scale deployment.
India’s drone capabilities are uneven but steadily improving. The country is strong in software, AI, and system design, with airframes and structural components largely localised. Flight controllers and embedded systems are also advancing. However, key dependencies like semiconductors, RF chips, camera sensors and high-performance propulsion are imported. Motors are improving but not yet globally competitive, while reliance on rare earth materials adds complexity. To bridge these gaps, Amber Wings is collaborating with startups to build subsystems, highlighting the need for ecosystem-level efforts. “Once scale comes, investment will follow and these gaps will close,” points out Vinay.
The 2030 Vision
The government’s ambition to position India as a global drone hub by 2030 reflects both opportunity and existing gaps. Initiatives such as the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes are helping offset the lack of scale and encouraging domestic manufacturing. However, demand today is still largely driven by government procurement, whether in defence or through state-level services. For the industry to mature, private sector adoption must increase significantly.
Amber Wings is focusing on proven platforms and real-world deployments, with over 13,000 kilometres of flight and ongoing trials in complex urban environments. “Over the next three years, skies will open,” believes Vinay. When they do, the winners will not be those who built the most advanced drones in isolation but those who solved real problems at scale. As Amber Wings prepares for its next phase of trials, the direction is becoming clearer. India’s drone industry will be defined by who scales first. And in that race, technology alone will not decide the outcome. Economics, policy and execution will.