Flipkart Minutes Nears Swiggy's Instamart as Amazon Expands

Flipkart Minutes has made significant strides in the Indian quick-commerce market, rapidly closing the gap with Swiggy's Instamart and Blinkit. The e-commerce giant’s foray into quick commerce, Flipkart Minutes, is now delivering 1.1 million to 1.2 million orders a day, up from about 390,000 to 400,000 in November, according to people familiar with the matter.

The gap is notable as Flipkart is a relative latecomer to a market dominated Blinkit continues to dominate the market with around 3.4 million to 3.6 million daily orders.

Key Analysis and Detailed Timeline

Despite being a relative newcomer, Flipkart Minutes is rapidly narrowing the gap with Instamart. Earlier this month, Swiggy stated that Instamart has more than 14 million monthly transacting users and operates over 1,200 dark stores across over 130 cities.

Meanwhile, Amazon is expanding its quick-commerce services as it seeks to gain a share in the Indian market. During CEO Andy Jassy's visit to India in June, Amazon stated that Now became its fastest-growing business in India, with orders doubling every quarter since launch.

The growth of quick-commerce platforms is increasingly defensive as well as offensive for both Flipkart and Amazon. As consumers grow accustomed to receiving certain purchases almost immediately, the e-commerce giants risk losing those transactions to specialist quick-commerce platforms if they cannot offer comparable speed.

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Broader Impact and Sector Outlook

Flipkart’s advantage goes beyond adding dark stores. The company can tap an enormous pool of existing e-commerce customers it has already spent years and billions of dollars acquiring, giving Minutes a ready audience for faster deliveries.

Minutes is also seeing customers return and shop more frequently. About 65% to 70% of customers making purchases on the service each month are repeat buyers, while transactions per customer have increased 50% to 60% from a year earlier.

Those customers are spending an average of about ₹400 to ₹500 (about $4.20–$5.20) per order, with fruits and vegetables, staples, dairy, and meat among the fast-growing categories.

Even as Minutes has expanded, its average delivery time has fallen to about 11 minutes, from 13 minutes a year ago.

Flipkart Minutes is rapidly closing the gap with Instamart in India's quick-commerce market. As Amazon expands its services and quick-commerce platforms continue to grow, it remains to be seen how this will affect the Indian e-commerce landscape.