Flipkart Minutes Hits 1,000 Micro-Fulfillment Centers, Targets 1,500 by 2026 as Quick-Commerce Race Heats Up
Flipkart's quick-commerce arm, Minutes, has crossed the 1,000 mark for micro-fulfillment centers in under two years of operation, the Walmart-backed company announced Wednesday. The network of small, strategically placed warehouses enables deliveries in minutes, and Flipkart plans to scale it to 1,500 centers by the end of 2026.
The milestone comes as Amazon accelerates its own fast-delivery service, Amazon Now, which currently runs over 500 micro-fulfillment centers across 15-plus cities. Amazon aims to expand to 100 cities with more than 1,000 centers, branching out from groceries to include apparel, electronics, and home products.
India's quick-commerce sector has become a fierce battleground. Blinkit leads the market with 2,243 centers, according to a Jefferies note. Zepto and Swiggy Instamart are also aggressively expanding. Based on current store counts and announced plans, Flipkart could become the second-largest network by center count, behind Blinkit.
Flipkart Minutes launched in August 2024. Since then, demand has shifted beyond groceries toward electronics, beauty, and personal care items, said Kunal Gupta, head of the service. Orders have grown roughly 400% year-over-year, while customer retention improved 20% in the same period. Both figures are company-provided and not independently verified.
“What began as a way to fulfill everyday essentials has evolved into a fundamentally new shopping habit for millions of Indians,” Gupta told TechCrunch. “Customers are not just ordering more; they are ordering differently.”
Flipkart has expanded Minutes to over 130 cities and 8,000 postal codes. Growth is increasingly coming from smaller cities beyond major metros, which posted more than 4,000% growth from a year earlier, helped by entry into 90 new cities. Gupta cited Patna, Guwahati, and Siliguri as markets where new stores are ramping faster than expected, and called Lucknow a top performer even without full city coverage.
Amazon is also betting on smaller markets. The company said 70% of new Prime members come from beyond the largest cities and it remains on track to double its Prime membership base from 2023 levels by year-end.
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📰 Source: TechCrunch