Bengaluru: Flipkart believes India's crowded quick-commerce market will eventually have fewer players, even as the Walmart-owned company aims to make its Minutes service the default app for consumers’ shopping and grocery needs.
It is expanding its dark-store network and using the service to turn occasional marketplace shoppers into more frequent buyers.
“There is absolutely no scope for eight, nine players… We would want to be the default app of India for its shopping and grocery needs,” Kunal Gupta, senior vice-president and head of Flipkart Minutes, said in an interview.
There are at least seven large-scale, multi-category quick-commerce platforms in India: Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, Flipkart Minutes, BB Now, Amazon Now and JioMart. Including niche fast-delivery apps such as Myntra’s M-Now and Slikk in fashion, and FirstClub in gourmet grocery and FMCG takes the number of competitors to 10.
Minutes’ revenue is growing fourfold from a year earlier, Gupta said, without disclosing the business’s revenue, gross order value or profitability. The service will have over 1,200 micro-fulfilment centres in September and plans to reach 1,500 by the end of the year, he said.
Minutes is present in more than 150 cities, with its customers in Tier-2 cities and beyond growing nearly 25-fold from a year earlier. Around 60% of customers return to shop on the platform, the company said.
The expansion has made Minutes a formidable new challenger in a market long dominated by Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart. It had 627 dark stores across the country’s top 10 quick-commerce cities in August, ahead of Instamart’s 615, according to CLSA. However, Blinkit remained the leader with 969 stores, followed by Zepto with 828.
Minutes had more than 1,000 micro-fulfilment centres across over 130 cities in June. It was estimated to be processing 1.1-1.2 million orders a day in August, compared with 390,000-400,000 in November. That puts it close to Instamart, which was estimated to process about 1.4 million daily orders, though it remains well behind Blinkit and Zepto by order volumes.
The business launched a standalone app this week after previously operating as a section within Flipkart’s main marketplace app. Flipkart is also piloting its food-delivery service, Eat In, among employees in Bengaluru, as it seeks to add new reasons for consumers to return to its platforms more frequently.
Gupta said the dark-store network will expand in two directions—by adding more facilities within existing cities and by entering new markets.
“Within the cities where we are already present, if we are not offering the service to the larger population of that city, we will go denser,” Gupta said. “In areas and cities where we are not present, we will continue to expand into new cities.”
The strategy reflects the economics of quick commerce, where stores closer to customers can shorten delivery distances, improve product availability and spread fixed costs over more orders. But the model also requires companies to build enough demand in a neighbourhood to justify rent, inventory, store staff and delivery costs.
Gupta did not share details of Minutes’ real-estate structure, including whether its micro-fulfilment centres are owned, leased or operated through partners.
Flipkart’s existing marketplace and logistics infrastructure has helped Minutes expand faster, Gupta said, but he argued that the new business’s own scale was more important to its economics.
Minutes is also using a wider assortment to improve baskets and margins. Gupta said it has nearly 500 private-label products across categories, including home care and gourmet food. The company’s gourmet and specialty grocery business has grown eightfold from a year earlier, while men’s grooming has grown nearly sixfold and pet food fivefold, according to the company.
“Our private-label strategy is more about identifying gaps in the market and meeting those needs, while building a healthy and growing bottom-line business,” Gupta said.
Pradyumna Nag, partner at Prequate Advisory, said Flipkart’s wider product assortment, buying scale and higher average order values (AOVs) could strengthen its pitch to future investors.
“One of the advantages of Flipkart is that [it has a] larger assortment and higher AOVs. Quick commerce and food delivery could help Flipkart capture a larger share of consumer spending and build a stronger growth narrative before an IPO," Nag added.
But he cautioned that quick commerce requires a distinct logistics model and cannot simply rely on Flipkart’s existing delivery network. “Quick commerce and food delivery require a different logistics model built for frequent deliveries. You cannot simply use an existing e-commerce delivery fleet, because it is already operating at a certain level of utilization,” Nag said.
Quick-commerce companies are taking different routes to improve profitability, with some prioritizing higher order density and others continuing to invest in expansion, discounts and customer acquisition.
Blinkit reported an adjusted Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) profit of ₹102 crore in the June quarter, while Instamart posted an adjusted Ebitda loss of ₹778 crore. Zepto doubled its fiscal 2026 revenue to ₹22,623 crore, but its net loss widened 26% to ₹5,905 crore.
Gupta, however, rejected the view that quick commerce would remain structurally loss-making perpetually, arguing that the economics improve as dark stores mature, order density rises and fixed costs are spread across orders.
Flipkart has not reported standalone financials for Minutes. Its marketplace arm, Flipkart Internet, reported a 14% rise in revenue to ₹20,493 crore in fiscal 2025, while its net loss narrowed 37% to ₹1,494 crore. Total expenses rose 8% to ₹22,311 crore, with marketing costs surging 37% to ₹4,100 crore.
For Flipkart, Minutes is now both a growth bet and a test of whether its larger marketplace ecosystem can build a durable quick-commerce business before its planned public listing.
Flipkart had had earlier considered filing draft papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) by late 2026 or early 2027. Those discussions have since been paused indefinitely, with Walmart asking Flipkart to focus on achieving Ebitda break-even by the end of fiscal 2027 before pursuing a private or public fundraise, according to a Moneycontrol report in May.