Twenty-minute service ‘NOW’ in the mix.

 

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has emphasised that delivery speed remains a core pillar of Amazon’s customer proposition, stating that the company is working to make “ultra-fast delivery available to more customers in more geographies”.

 

“We know how much customers crave [faster delivery] and we see higher order completion rates when delivery promises are faster,” he stated in his annual note to shareholders.

 

He added: “Just three years ago, two-day delivery was the gold standard. We pushed that bar to one day and have been working tirelessly to make it same day.”

 

Amazon has introduced a more streamlined fulfilment centre format called Same Day Fulfillment Centres (SSDs). It now has 85 SSDs across the US that carry its top 90,000 SKUs, enabling it to deliver more than 500 million same day units so far in 2026.

 

A notable recent development is the expansion of Amazon Now, the company’s 20-minute delivery proposition, that has been piloted in India and the UAE using micro-fulfilment centres. Jassy said Prime members using this service have tripled their shopping frequency and ‘Now’ is being introduced into the US and Europe.

 

Jassy also highlighted efforts to extend faster delivery into less densely populated areas in the US, noting that Amazon has committed over US$4 billion to expand its rural delivery network. This includes using alternative delivery methods such as drones, which the company sees as a way to reach customers more quickly in harder-to-serve locations.

 

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