How Flipkart Minutes became the company's redemption arc

Daybreak - The Ken

Flipkart Minutes has rapidly evolved from a struggling grocery vertical into the e-commerce giant's most critical growth driver, capturing 20-25% of non-electronics business through aggressive dark store expansion and strategic leadership changes. Under Kunal

Key takeaways

Kunal Gupta transformed Minutes by fixing demand forecasting, expanding premium/D2C brand selection (e.g., Ghar Soaps, Blubbly Blue), and targeting Gen Z shoppers aged 21-36.
Minutes now operates ~1,000 fulfillment centers/dark stores across 130 cities, overtaking Swiggy Instamart in top metros and generating ~₹1,200 crore monthly revenue.

Main topics

Quick commerce market dynamics
Flipkart Minutes leadership & strategy

Notable quotes

"Finally, we had a single driving force for the whole minutes piece."

Conclusion

Minutes represents a high-stakes pivot for Flipkart, combining operational rigor with

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Every week, Kunal Gupta, the head of Flipkart Minutes, sits down with his whole team for a two-hour long catch-up meeting. And every week, he talks stock. Now, Minutes is the company's 10-minute delivery arm. And a category manager from the company told my colleague Nuhar that Gupta goes through data on SKU's step-by-step with the category managers and directors. He also said, that he had never seen a senior vice president go through SKUs at that level before. That kind of attention to detail is exactly how Gupta has turned Minutes into the hottest new quick commerce property in the country. And in the process, it has also made Minutes critical to Flipkart's growth strategy. Minutes is flush with cash from its Walmart-backed parent, and has built a network of about 1,000 fulfillment centers and dark stores across 130 cities and 8,000 pin codes. Actually, in the top 10 metros, it has even overtaken Swiggy Instamart and is catching up on order volumes as well. All of which is remarkable for a company that's only two years old. The category manager also said that Minutes now brings in about 20-25 % of Flipkart's business. if you don't include electronics and mobiles. That's roughly 1200 crore rupees a month. And minutes is only getting started. Numbers from Equus Capital, a financial advisory, show that quick commerce is expected to stay India's fastest growing segment of retail market in 2026. It's growing at twice the rate of digital commerce overall. And that makes a huge difference for Flipkart. The mobiles, electronics and large appliances segment has driven the growth of online marketplaces for a long time. But that segment has now started maturing. And the next push has to come from new business lines like BigCommerce. So there's a lot riding on minutes. Because you see, Flipkart was already very late to the 10-minute delivery race, years behind the current market leaders. But with minutes, it has started to make amends. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Reetha Rakesh, and every day of the week, my co-hosts, Indhush Ramana, bring you one news story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Monday, the 5th of October. Speaker 2 (2:45) Karan Taurani is the vice president at Ilarra Capital, a brokerage firm. He explained to Noha why minutes matters to Flipkart so much. He said it is very important for Flipkart to succeed with minutes because incrementally, e-commerce growth will be driven by quick commerce as consumer expectations change towards shorter delivery times. You see, Flipkart grew into a major player because of the smartphone and fashion boom. But as soon as it started selling groceries, it struggled. The platform claimed that it was overwhelmed by unexpectedly high order volumes, which strained its supply chain and app infrastructure. This strain eventually compelled a shutdown in 2022 so that it could catch up on fulfillment. So this time, Flipkart is not taking any chances with Minutes. The manager I mentioned before said that Minutes is expanding aggressively into tier 2 cities. They also said