Amazon Now, Flipkart Minutes go full throttle in India's qcom space

Amazon Now and Flipkart Minutes are expanding aggressively to challenge Blinkit, Instamart and Zepto, betting on scale, Tier-II markets and existing customer ecosystems

India’s quick commerce (qcom) sector has been the centre of action and attention in the past few years, but the market now seems to be entering its fiercest phase. 

After adopting a wait-and-watch strategy for a few years, during which Blinkit, Instamart and Zepto dominated the 10-minute delivery space, e-commerce (ecom) giants Amazon and Flipkart have now upped their qcom bets. 

According to Bain & Company, the country’s qcom market has doubled annually over the past two years and is projected to reach $65-70 billion by 2030, contributing 45-50 per cent of incremental e-retail gross merchandise value (GMV) over the next five years. 

Interestingly, while incumbents have established a strong presence in metros, Tier-II and Tier-III cities remain relatively untapped, which is what Amazon and Flipkart are eyeing. 

“In cities where qcom is still absent, Amazon and Flipkart may have an advantage because consumers have not yet formed loyalties,” said Lloyd Mathias, angel investor and business stra­tegist. This realisation is driving Amazon Now and Flipkart Minutes’ expansion, with Amazon targeting 300 cities rather than focusing solely on metros and Flipkart reporting 42-fold growth in Tier-II markets. 

Mathias believes the strategy is logical. “Amazon recognises that it has lost time in the metro markets. Going deeper into newer cities gives it an opportunity to establish leadership before rivals scale there.” 

Mani Singhal, managing director (MD) and colead, consumer and retail practice at consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal India, said: “Expansion into Tier-II and Tier-III cities signals confidence that demand for speed and convenience is no longer confined to metros. But economics will vary significantly by market and execution quality will remain critical.” 

Old players, fresh qcom bets 

During his recent India visit, Amazon chief executive officer (CEO) Andy Jassy said the company’s qcom business, Amazon Now, which launched last year, is seeing strong momentum and doubling every quarter. Around the same time, the company announced plans to expand its qcom service to 300 cities as part of its over ~2,800 crore investment in India. This comes alongside its broader $48 billion commitment through 2030. 

However, Amazon’s expansion to 300 cities looks small in comparison to other players. Flipkart Minutes said it has scaled up to 1,000 micro fulfilment centres (dark stores) across more than 130 cities in under two years. It plans to expand to about 1,500 centres in the coming months. 

On the other hand, Blinkit operates nearly 2,243 dark stores, while Zepto and Instamart have 1,139 (66 cities) and 1,143 dark stores (131 cities), respectively, built extensively over the past four to five years. And, Tata-owned qcom player BigBasket has more than 900 dark stores in 60 cities.

 

Even though the count of Flipkart Minutes’ dark stores is comparable to Zepto’s and Instamart’s, the player doesn’t feature among the top three players in terms of market share. 

The same goes for Amazon Now which has decided to focus on breadth, not depth like Zepto. 

Anant Vidur Puri, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, said, “I read this as a sign of how strong the category has become. When the largest players in Indian retail commit serious capital to dark stores, they confirm what Blinkit, Zepto, Instamart and BigBasket proved first: Indians have fundamentally changed how they shop.” 

Together, the Walmart-backed Flipkart and Amazon bring unmatched financial muscle, decades of ecom expertise and millions of existing customers into the market. 

The question, however, is whether those strengths are enough to dislodge incumbents that have a four-to-five-year headstart.

According to Adarsh Menon, partner at Fireside Ventures, the biggest misconception is that qcom is already a saturated urban business. “The channel has expanded beyond high-density metros into Tier-I and Tier-II cities. Delivery may not always be 10 minutes, it could be 20 or 30 minutes, but the model itself is now reaching far larger consumer cohorts.” 

He added that people are becoming comfortable transacting online and newer-age brands are increasingly using qcom to build their customers. 

He said “These are long-term tailwinds that make the market significantly larger.” 

In its shareholder letter for the fourth quarter of 2025-2026, Albinder Dhindsa, group CEO of Eternal (parent firm of Blinkit) had said, “Qcom today is still concentrated in the top 15-20 cities and in a relatively narrow set of categories. The headroom for growth in geography, assortment, and frequency is substantial.”

 

Amazon Now & Flipkart Minutes: SWOT profile 

Unlike players like Zepto, Amazon Now and Flipkart Minutes are not starting from scratch. They already have millions of active shoppers, logistics infrastructure, fulfilment centres, seller ecosystems and years of customer data. 

Mathias said Amazon and Flipkart enjoy advantages built over more than a decade. “They have deep pockets, decades of institutional learning and established customer trust. They also possess extensive fulfilment infrastructure, marketplace ecosystems and logistics capabilities that newer qcom companies have spent years trying to build.”

 

Alongside this, ecom players have a high customer base that can be migrated to their respective qcom businesses. "Flipkart has always appealed to value-seeking shoppers, and that proposition extends naturally into qcom," Menon said. 

In the case of Amazon, Menon added that the Prime ecosystem gives a unique advantage. “Prime customers already trust Amazon. Once they discover Amazon Now, many of them will naturally gravitate towards that as well.” Rightfully so, Amazon had said that Prime members who use qcom are shopping three times more. 

Experts said that the marketplace model of ecom companies also gives them access to significantly wider product assortments, ranging from niche brands to imported goods, something qcom players are only beginning to replicate. 

Angad Singh, founding member at logistics firm Zippee (a qcom enabler) which operates dark stores for platforms including Flipkart Minutes, HUL, and Clinikally among others, said the biggest advantage of Blinkit, Instamart, and Zepto lies in their mature infrastructure. "The game is fundamentally a function of how many dark stores you operate. More dark stores mean better serviceability, higher order density, better utilisation and ultimately stronger store profitability." 

Singh said that beyond the number of stores, the top three players also benefit from years of operational refinement. "They already understand local demand patterns, inventory planning, customer behaviour and assortment optimisation. A dark store in South Delhi requires a completely different product mix from one in Narela (Delhi). These are learnings that come only with time,” Singh added. 

For investors, Puri said the interesting question is defensibility. He said capital is just the starting point. It buys dark stores, delivery fleets and speed, and every serious player now has those. “Defensibility lives in the cohorts. It shows up in whether a customer spends more in month twelve than in month one, and whether each new cohort comes back stronger than the last without being paid to return. That is what funding cannot buy,” he said. 

The future of qcom 

"The future of all ecom is qcom," said Shailesh Haribhakti, who is part of the board of independent directors at Swiggy. As AI-powered autonomous agents increasingly make purchase decisions on behalf of consumers, platforms with product availability, transparent pricing and seamless customer experience will emerge as winners, he said. 

Experts added that Amazon Now and Flipkart Minutes will also have to spend considerably more to acquire those customers.

"If a customer in Bengaluru has been happily using Blinkit for years, switching isn't easy. As long as pricing, service levels and availability remain satisfactory, new entrants will have to work much harder to convince customers to place not just their first order, but also their second and third,” Menon added. 

That means differentiated propositions. Amazon could leverage Prime benefits, while Flipkart may use exclusive merchandise, pricing or loyalty programmes to attract users. Meanwhile, incumbents cannot afford complacency. 

Singhal of Alvarez & Marsal India said, “Capital can accelerate expansion, but over the long term, operational excellence and disciplined execution are likely to be stronger sources of competitive advantage than capital alone.” 

In all, few experts expect the existing players to lose their leadership anytime soon. They said that Blinkit, Instamart, and Zepto still enjoy significant advantages in consumer loyalty, dark store density, operational maturity and local execution. However, they added, Amazon and Flipkart possess strengths that few companies globally can match.