The quick-commerce competition has been entered by Flipkart, an online retailer controlled by Walmart, with its Minutes service. The service, which is already available in select areas of Bengaluru, is competing with businesses like Zepto, Instamart from Swiggy, and Blinkit from Zomato. For the past few months, Flipkart has been preparing to enter the 10-minute delivery service market.
The service has been made available in places including Bellandur, Kadubeesanahalli, Gunjur, and HSR Layout. These are well-known residential areas and IT clusters where there is a great need for speedy commerce services. In ten to fifteen minutes, Flipkart delivers gadgets, smartphones, and other products.
The source with knowledge of the situation stated, “The service has gone live in select parts of Bengaluru.” “The plan is to continue refining it before expanding.”
According to insiders, Flipkart planned to run about 100 fulfilment hubs to help its efforts towards rapid commerce play during this year’s holiday season.
Industry insiders claim that firms like Zepto, Instamart, and Blinkit, with their 15–20 minute delivery times, are stealing a significant share of Flipkart and Amazon’s goods sales.
Flipkart has already started offering same-day goods delivery in a number of categories. With this change, the Bengaluru-based company will be able to distribute its goods to millions of consumers in 20 cities, including both metro and non-metropolitan areas.
Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Guwahati, Indore, Jaipur, Ludhiana, Nagpur, Patna, Raipur, Siliguri, and Vijayawada are a few of the non-metropolitan cities. The company is expanding this to include Tier-II and Tier-III regions and categories, in addition to more cities. The quick-commerce effort, on the other hand, differs from this service in that its goal is to deliver the goods considerably more quickly.
Flipkart’s vice president and head of groceries, Hari Kumar G, recently stated that the business is growing its grocery services into Tier-2+ towns throughout Bharat and broadening their presence within metros. According to Kumar, next-day delivery methods and quick-commerce can coexist. But given the demand it sees in some parts of the nation, the business is also looking into offering quick-commerce services in the future.
According to sources, Google, a key player in the computer industry, invested over $350 million for a minority stake in Flipkart this year. The investment is a part of Flipkart’s 2023 $1 billion financing round. With the help of this fundraiser, Flipkart will have the financial strength to take on Amazon, Reliance JioMart, Tata Digital, and other fast-moving firms in the market like Blinkit, Zepto, and Swiggy’s Instamart.
The CEO of Blinkit, a rapid commerce startup owned by Zomato, Albinder Dhindsa, has stated that the company intends to continue growing at the expense of reduced short-term margins. By the end of 2026, it hopes to have 2,000 dark stores, up from the present 639.
In recent quarters, the firm has been rapidly growing its network of dark stores. In the first quarter (Q1) of the current fiscal year (FY25), Blinkit added 113 stores, as opposed to 526 in the prior quarter.
The majority of these stores are located in India’s top ten cities. The extent of the market is yet unknown outside of the big cities.
Blinkit surpassed Zomato’s main meal delivery division in terms of adjusted revenue and gross order value (GOV) growth during the June quarter. Compared to food delivery, which increased at a rate of over 10% across both measures, the rapid commerce vertical’s GOV and revenue increased at a rate of over 22% quarter-over-quarter (Q-o-Q).
The company’s GOV increased from Rs 4,027 crore to Rs 4,923 crore in the June quarter.
By March 2025, another company, Zepto, intends to have doubled the number of dark stores to 700. It just completed one of the biggest financing rounds in fast commerce this year, raising $665 million in a capital transaction that increased its worth to $3.6 billion.