Hello, this is Priyanka Salve, writing to you from Singapore.
Welcome to the latest edition of “Inside India“ — your one-stop destination for stories and developments from the world’s fastest-growing large economy.
India’s 15-minute delivery boom is reshaping one of the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce markets. The service, expected to account for nearly 40% of online retail sales in the country by 2030, is currently led by local players, but Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart are mounting an aggressive challenge. The stakes extend beyond growth — they’re fighting to stay relevant in a market that’s redefining consumer expectations.
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The big story
The under-15-minute delivery, or quick commerce, companies in India have achieved something remarkable: they disrupted the biggest disruptors. But the fight isn’t over yet.
Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, the e-commerce giants that once ended the dominance of physical retail stores in India, were late to enter the quick commerce space but are now mounting an aggressive challenge against the sector’s incumbents.
E-commerce companies are not just chasing market share in a new format – they need to offer quick commerce services to remain relevant to consumers, experts told CNBC, adding that India is an important long-term growth market where they need to tap into shifts in consumption habits.
So, during Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy’s visit to India last week, quick commerce was undoubtedly in focus.
On June 24, Jassy visited a micro fulfilment center in Mumbai and said in a post on X that the global e-commerce major now has ambitions to become India’s “largest delivery-in-minutes network.”
On its app, Amazon Now in India is offering cash back of up to 25% for the first five orders and waiving platform fees and delivery charges as it seeks to rapidly onboard customers and deepen adoption of the service.
The U.S company plans to offer Amazon Now services in more than 300 cities, compared to Blinkit, which is India’s dominant quick commerce company with more than 2,200 dark stores serving over 200 cities as of March 2026.
The other challenger, Flipkart, also said last week that its quick service offering, Minutes, has over 1,000 micro fulfilment centers across more than 130 cities.
“For Amazon and Flipkart, this isn’t simply about entering another retail format — it’s about ensuring they remain relevant if instant fulfilment becomes the preferred mode of e-commerce,” Aakash Agrawal, associate director at Anand Rathi Investment Banking, told CNBC.
Swiggy Ltd. employee prepare orders inside a company’s dark store in Mumbai, India, on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The frenzied adoption
Quick commerce is a post-pandemic phenomenon in India that began with under-15-minute delivery of fresh produce and fast-moving consumer goods but has gradually expanded to include smartphones, small electronic gadgets and appliances, beauty products, pharmacy and more.
It has rewired consumer habits to prioritize delivery of online products within minutes rather than days. Food delivery companies like Eternal and Swiggy, with their localized logistics networks, were among the first to scale up in this space in India, even though it is start-up Zepto that is often credited with being the first to launch quick commerce in 2021.
While fresh produce, staples, and FMCG goods are the most frequently ordered products on quick commerce platforms, according to experts, small electronic items, kitchen appliances, and travel accessories are also popular across Amazon, Flipkart and their more established rivals.
Amazon is also setting up 100 urban fulfilment centers that will stock apparel, electronics, jewelry, shoes, luggage, watches, wireless accessories, musical instruments and furniture for quick commerce orders.
According to an April report by Bain & Company, India is the “global leader” in quick commerce adoption, with nearly 17% of its e-commerce gross merchandise value flowing through these platforms.
By 2030, the quick commerce opportunity in India is expected to reach between $65 and $70 billion, up sixfold from 2025, the report said, adding that it will account for up to 40% of total online retail sales by gross volume and nearly half of incremental sales.
Both Amazon and Flipkart are already experiencing the frenzy of quick commerce adoption in India and are expected to take market share from competitors with a weaker financial profile, experts said.
“Prime members triple their shopping frequency once they start using it [Amazon Now], and we’ve seen orders double every quarter since launch,” Jassy said in his post, adding that quick commerce is now the “fastest-growing ecommerce business unit in India” for the company.
A Flipkart spokesperson told CNBC that the e-commerce firm is seeing a sharp rise in adoption of quick commerce outside of metro cities, with Gen Z being the “fastest-growing cohort,” accounting for 40% of the customer base.
With the entry of Flipkart and Amazon, the competitive intensity of the quick commerce market has increased, experts said, adding that it will eventually shrink to two to three companies in the next few years as cash burn ends.
Blinkit, the quick commerce platform of Eternal, is the only quick commerce company that has proved profitability at the operating level over the last two quarters. It reported adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of 370 million rupees ($3.8 million) in the March quarter and of 40 million rupees in the previous quarter.
“Our view is that Blinkit is definitely going to be one of those two or three players,” Aditya Soman, senior research analyst at CLSA India, told CNBC’s Inside India on Tuesday.
But the slot for two more winners in the quick commerce race remains wide open.
Need to know
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One of India’s largest gold exporters paid its managing director just $180 a month, probe reveals
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Coming up
July 1-3: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi visits India.
July 3: HSBC composite final PMI for June.