Flipkart Minutes Expands To 1000 Stores As Quick Commerce Competition Intensifies

Minutes, the quick commerce division of Flipkart, has expanded to 1,000 fulfilment centres across 130 cities in less than two years, underscoring the growing competition in India's instant delivery market, where Amazon is expanding aggressively while Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart continue to invest in stores, product assortment and customer acquisition.“We are roughly five times the size we were during the same period last year,” Kunal Gupta, senior vice president (SVP) and head of Flipkart Minutes, told ET. “It will be an aggressive expansion from here on. In the next few months, we are looking for 1,500 stores in 180-plus cities.”The expansion marks an acceleration for Flipkart, which had about 750 Minutes stores in March this year. The Walmart-owned company is now adding about 100 stores per month, or three to four per day, senior executives said.Flipkart's push, which followed the deferment of its initial public offer (IPO) plan, comes at a time when rival Amazon is scaling Amazon Now, which has around 500 stores and is adding at least two dark stores every day, with plans to serve 100 cities through a network of more than 1,000 micro-fulfilment centres.The Minutes store count places it behind Swiggy Instamart and IPO-bound Zepto. Zepto and Instamart ended FY26 with 1,139 and 1,143 dark stores, respectively, behind Blinkit’s 2,243.Unlike rivals, Flipkart is also pushing into smaller markets. Of the 130 cities where Minutes is live, about 90 are in smaller markets, executives said.“We are expanding the market further into tier-2 and tier-3 cities. At the same time, we want to be competitive in the places where other competitors are and disrupt value grocery,” said Hemant Badri, SVP and head of supply chain for Minutes and ReCommerce.Gupta said customers in smaller cities are showing a different pattern from metros, where quick commerce is more convenience- and impulse-led. “In tier-2 and tier-3 cities, consumers spend with a larger average order value compared to metros,” he said. “It is still a larger basket-builder behaviour.”Flipkart is also leaning on its existing customer base. Badri said Flipkart has 230-250 million annual active customers, and when Minutes is available in a city or serviceable polygon, nearly 80% of those customers shop on the platform. He said that the company also sees higher transactions on the core Flipkart platform from these users.Minutes stores are typically 3,000-5,000 sq ft, though some in smaller cities can be larger. Larger stores can hold up to 20,000 stock-keeping units, including groceries, daily essentials, mobiles and electronics.The broader assortment is central to Flipkart’s attempt to position Minutes beyond grocery. During festive sales such as Big Billion Days, Badri said Minutes could be used as an additional go-to-market channel for mobiles and electronics in serviceable zones, though he added that “fundamentally, it is a daily essentials business”.The company did not disclose order-per-day numbers.Last week, Amazon Now announced the launch of 100 large fulfilment centres in key cities.