Two years after launch, Walmart’s Flipkart is closing in on India’s quick-commerce leaders
Walmart-owned Flipkart's quick-commerce arm, Flipkart Minutes, is rapidly narrowing the gap with India's established instant-delivery leaders two years after its 2024 launch, even as Amazon separately pushes into the same market. The service now handles 1.1 to 1.2 million orders a day, up sharply from around 390,000-400,000 in November, bringing it close to Swiggy's Instamart, the smallest of the three previously dominant players alongside Blinkit and Zepto. This rapid rise reflects Flipkart's ability to leverage its large existing e-commerce customer base while aggressively building out delivery infrastructure.
Blinkit remains the market leader with roughly 3.4 to 3.6 million daily orders, followed by Zepto at 2.4 to 2.6 million and Instamart at about 1.4 million, according to Datum Intelligence estimates. Flipkart Minutes now operates around 1,020 to 1,050 micro-fulfilment centres, up from just 340 a year ago, and is adding roughly 100 more each month with a target of 1,500 by the end of 2026. Between 65 and 70 percent of monthly customers are repeat buyers, spending an average of ₹400-500 (about $4.20-5.20) per order, with fruit, vegetables, staples, dairy and meat among the fastest-growing categories, while average delivery times have fallen to around 11 minutes.
- Flipkart Minutes now delivers 1.1-1.2 million orders daily, nearing Instamart
- Blinkit leads India's quick-commerce market, followed by Zepto and Instamart
- Flipkart is expanding fulfilment centres fast, aiming for 1,500 by end-2026
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Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce company majority-owned by American retail giant Walmart, launched a "quick commerce" service called Flipkart Minutes in 2024, promising groceries and everyday goods delivered within minutes rather than days. This puts it in direct competition with a handful of Indian rivals that pioneered the model, chiefly Blinkit (owned by Eternal, formerly Zomato), Zepto and Swiggy's Instamart, which built their businesses around small local warehouses positioned close to customers to enable very fast delivery.
Quick commerce has become one of the most closely watched and fiercely contested segments of Indian retail, drawing in huge investment as companies race to build networks of these mini warehouses and capture habitual, repeat-buying customers. Amazon has also been moving into the space, meaning several of the world's largest retail and technology companies are now competing with well-funded domestic Indian startups for a slice of the country's fast-growing online grocery market.
The competition matters because India has over a billion consumers and a retail sector that is still largely made up of small, traditional shops, so whoever builds the most efficient delivery network stands to gain a lasting advantage as more shopping moves online. It is also a test of whether large, established e-commerce players like Flipkart and Amazon can out-manoeuvre nimbler local startups in a business that depends heavily on logistics, speed and tight profit margins.