India’s quick-commerce race heats up: Flipkart Minutes to open 800 dark stores by 2025-end

Flipkart Minutes, the quick-commerce arm of e-commerce giant, Flipkart, has plans to set up to 800 dark stores by the end of 2025, according to CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy. The move underscores the company’s ambition to gain a larger foothold in India’s rapidly growing quick-commerce market.

“We launched our own quick commerce product nine months ago with just about 100 stores, and we are already close to 300 now. By the end of this year, we expect to reach 800 stores — that's the vision we have,” Krishnamurthy said at Walmart’s 2025 Investment Community Meeting.

The expansion comes amid escalating competition in India’s $2.8-billion quick-commerce industry. Startups like Zepto and food delivery giants Swiggy and Zomato — through Instamart and Blinkit, respectively — are aggressively scaling, while traditional players such as Flipkart, Amazon, and Tata-owned Bigbasket are also doubling down on the space.

Krishnamurthy’s comments follow Flipkart receiving ₹3,249 crore (approximately $382 million) in internal funding from its Singapore-based parent entity, as per regulatory filings. The capital is seen as critical for scaling Flipkart’s young quick-commerce division to better compete with market leaders.

Zepto, launched in July 2021, already operates 700 dark stores and offers over 15,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs). “Around 70% of our dark stores are cash-flow positive. Earlier, it took 23 months for a store to become profitable; now it takes just eight,” Aadit Palicha, co-founder and CEO, Zepto told Fortune India in an earlier interaction.

The cost of launching and making a dark store profitable has also declined — from ₹3.91 crore to ₹1.54 crore. “We reached a $1 billion top line faster than Flipkart — they took four years, we did it in two and a half, with a fraction of the capital. It’s all about deep execution and excellence,” Palicha said.

As Zepto and other players scale swiftly, Flipkart is working to catch up. “The customer segment for quick commerce is very sophisticated, with high expectations. The key to success is building a supply chain that is scalable, technology-enabled, agile, and reliable,” Krishnamurthy emphasized.

Despite its rapid growth, the quick-commerce sector remains largely confined to India’s urban centres — a reality reflected in Flipkart’s growth strategy.

“For the top 50 cities and the more affluent user base, we will lead with speed, service, convenience, and national brands,” Krishnamurthy said. “As we move to the next customer segment, we focus on selection and value, making speed a baseline expectation.”