DHL joins NX Group in race to build semiconductor logistics in India
The DHL Group, the world’s third-largest logistics company, is building a semiconductor logistics and warehousing facility in Dholera, Gujarat, close to where Tata Electronics is building India’s first pure-play commercial chip fabrication plant to capture a larger share of the country's $310-billion supply chain and logistics industry.
Vikas Anand, managing director of DHL Supply Chain India, said in an interview with Mint that the company will “initially invest approximately ₹50 crore” to set up the facility, which is expected to become operational by August 2027. Following this, it may increase the investment “three or four times by 2030, depending on the expansion plans that we have with our customers”.
It would be the $70-billion German company's first dedicated semiconductor warehouse in India, though it has built and operates select semiconductor raw-material storage units at its warehouses in Gujarat and Assam.
Semiconductor logistics require specialized, highly controlled clean room standards in terms of dust, humidity and temperature levels, electrostatic-proof floors, vibration-free transportation, and high-value security and tracking standards.
The investment will be a part of DHL's €1 billion ( ₹10,700 crore) outlay in India, which the company announced on 13 November 2025. “Out of this corpus, about ₹5,000 crore is earmarked solely for DHL Supply Chain India, from which about 10% will be invested to cater to semiconductors,” Anand added.
Before DHL, Japan’s NX Group signed a partnership on 9 September with India Semiconductor Mission under the Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity) to develop “semiconductor logistics infrastructure and strengthen supply chains in India".
The semiconductor bets come as Tata Electronics’s 28-nanometre (nm) chip fab is expected to become operational in Dholera in 2027, Mint reported on 11 September 2025.
Long time in the making
While the logistics facility is still in the planning phase, Anand said work on it began two years ago.
“About 5,000 supply chain specialists at DHL Supply Chain globally work in the semiconductor sector. Within the Asia-Pacific, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore are particularly strong. For India, two years ago, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the first semiconductor mission, and investments started coming in, we sent a team from India to Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore to learn how the business is conducted in these markets.”
“When the semiconductor supply chain starts developing, the first requirement is capital equipment to set up the factories. These are highly precise and sensitive machines, equipped with tiltmeters. In India, most trucks use conventional suspension systems, so we invested in air-ride trucks. We imported air suspension systems from the US and modified our trucks to transport this equipment,” he added, explaining the work that the company has already done to set up a semiconductor supply chain in India.
With this, Anand said he does not expect domestic competition in semiconductor logistics due to the specialized investments it needs, but said global competition is a factor that the company will have to take into consideration.
“Until then, Indian logistics companies will take time to learn as we replicate our global learning into India. We have a head start over many Indian companies,” he added.
While being the third-largest global logistics firm, DHL Supply Chain India remains smaller by revenue than at least five Indian rivals in the country’s logistics and supply chain industry—Allcargo Logistics, TVS Supply Chain Solutions, Delhivery, Mahindra Logistics and Safexpress.
As of fiscal year 2024-25 (FY25), the latest available fiscal filing, DHL Supply Chain India reported ₹2,085.3 crore in operating revenue and a net loss of ₹4.5 crore, according to ministry of corporate affairs filings accessed via business intelligence and financial data platform Tofler.
While Anand did not single out a revenue target from its semiconductor business alone, he said that businesses including semiconductors, data centres, electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels and other clean-energy sectors may contribute about 20% of DHL’s revenue by 2030.
Promising segment
Industry stakeholders backed DHL’s semiconductor bet, underscoring that New Delhi's growing interest in chips will only expand business opportunities for logistics and supply chain support.
“For suppliers, fabs are attractive because they provide long-term contracts, higher gross margins compared with commodity customers and provide ramp-up runways when fabs expand capacity. For logistics, the biggest opportunity may be during equipment installation, since fab equipment requires highly specialized handling,” said Kanishka Chauhan, senior principal analyst at Gartner.
The need for suppliers to be located close to fabs could also drive the formation of semiconductor clusters around manufacturing centres such as Dholera.
“For most industries, being away from a supplier is inconvenient; for semiconductor manufacturing, it can impact uptime and profitability,” Chauhan said. “A semiconductor fab can face heavy losses if production stops unexpectedly. A single interruption in the supply of ultra-high-purity gases and speciality chemicals can halt production. This is why semiconductor ecosystems tend to cluster geographically.”