Today’s top tech news: Google and Flipkart as focusing on India on-ground as Zomato looks to the skies with Facebook paying users to access their data

The three giants in India’s telecom space — Vodafone Idea, Airtel and Jio — are all biding to gain 50% of the market share. Jio’s aggressive pricing of data plans and new subscriptions has taken a considerable number of subscribers away from its competitors.

Jio currently leads the market 39.8% share while Vodafone Idea and Airtel trail behind at 28.9% and 24%, respectively.

Why you should care:

If the target it to get to 50% market share that means the race is far from over. Aggressive pricing and battles over who can provide a better user experience are likely to continue until that goal is achieved.

Zomato just announced a successful test delivery using drones in India. During the test, Zomato’s drone over 5 kilometers in 10 minutes reaching a maximum speed of 80 kmph while carrying 5 kilograms of weight.

The CEO of Zomato, Deepinder Goyal, explains that this is the next phase of food delivery. He explains, “The only possible way to reduce the average 30.5 minutes to 15 minutes is to take the aerial route.”

Why you should care:

The Indian government is already working on bringing about a drone policy that may make open up the skies in India to commercial players. As regulatory hurdles are being discussed, it’s possible that, in the near future, doorstep food delivery might be carried out by unmanned aeiral vehicles rather than delivery boys.

Flipkart, one of India’s biggest e-commerce companies and Amazon’s primary competitor in the Indian market, has shifted half of its manufacturing from China to various places in India.

Flipkart’s own labels — like MarQ, Perfect Homes and Billion — is looking to source its raw materials from within India.

Why you should care:

Amazon has been dominating the Indian market with its smart speakers, the Echo series, which feature the digital assistant Alexa. Flipkart, on the other hand, is still trying to popularise its private labels. Sourcing from India itself may give Flipkart an edge against Amazon as well as Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail that plans to launch its own online ecommerce platform by the end of the year.