Beyond the top 3, Amazon and Flipkart wage war to win the quick commerce crown

While the top three quick commerce players (Eternal's Blinkit, Swiggy's Instamart, and Zepto) fight to retain market leadership, the late entrants — the ecommerce majors, Amazon and Flipkart — are also aggressively allocating resources to win in the same space.

Flipkart's push

Flipkart Minutes, the Walmart-backed company's quick commerce arm, expanded to over 1,000 fulfilment centres across 130 cities by June, in just under two years since launch.


“We are roughly five times the size we were during the same period last year. It will be an aggressive expansion from here on," said Kunal Gupta, senior vice president and head of Flipkart Minutes.

ET reported on June 24 that the company intends to reach 1,500 stores (up from about 750 in March) across more than 180 cities; it is currently adding roughly 100 stores a month, or 3-4 a day.

Unlike quick commerce incumbents who are focussing on densification in the metros, Minutes is expanding its reach in tier 2 and 3 cities. Of the 130 cities where Minutes is live, about 90 are in smaller markets, executives said.

“The average order value in tier 2 and 3 cities is larger than metros,” Kunal Gupta, senior vice president and head, Flipkart Minutes, told ET.

Amazon's play

Amazon Now's expansion is along the same lines. It currently operates about 500 dark stores across 15 cities, including Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Amritsar, and Kochi. The company announced on Tuesday that it plans to extend the service to 300 cities.

This comes two months after the company first outlined a target of 100 cities and 1,000 dark stores. According to Amazon, orders on the platform have grown 25% month on month, doubling every quarter since launch. The company also announced last week the opening of 100 large fulfilment centres in cities such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, and Mumbai.

Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy is in India this week, where he is meeting senior business leaders in Mumbai and is scheduled to meet prime minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.

Amazon had earlier announced a Rs 2,800 crore investment in India to strengthen its infrastructure and operations, which is part of its broader $35 billion commitment by 2030.

Samir Kumar, Amazon India's country manager, had told ET in a previous interaction, "We were slow out of the gate, but we were not sitting idle... Once we decided to get there, we got there quickly."

Trailing market leaders

Despite this scale, both companies are behind the established leaders.

Data compiled by Kotak Institutional Equities shows the top three players ended FY26 with 4,525 dark stores and a combined gross merchandise value of about Rs 92,000 crore, nearly double the previous year. The three platforms together processed almost two billion orders during the year.