{"id":2807,"date":"2026-10-20T08:34:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T08:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2026\/10\/20\/flipkart-food-delivery-challenger-india\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T08:34:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T08:34:18","slug":"flipkart-food-delivery-challenger-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/2026\/10\/20\/flipkart-food-delivery-challenger-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Flipkart Prepares Food\u2011Delivery Service to Take on Zomato and Swiggy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<!-- Quick Adsense WordPress Plugin: http:\/\/quickadsense.com\/ -->\n<div class=\"9fece8afa224fd09e54b043d0febfb58\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- NR ATF -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8898941184964366\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"4839033563\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>Flipkart, the Indian e\u2011commerce platform owned by Walmart, is moving from testing to a public launch of a food\u2011delivery service that it hopes will break the duopoly held by Zomato and Swiggy. The company has expanded an internal trial to more than 8,000 employees and is assembling a dedicated rider fleet through its logistics arm, Ekart, ahead of a rollout expected by the end of October.<\/p>\n<h2>Internal trial and logistics set\u2011up<\/h2>\n<p>The trial, which began as a small experiment for a few hundred staff members, now serves upwards of 8,000 Flipkart employees, according to two people familiar with the plan. The service appears as a distinct tab called \u201cEat\u2011in by Minutes\u201d within the main Flipkart shopping app, sitting alongside the existing \u201cMinutes\u201d quick\u2011commerce offering and travel\u2011booking features.<\/p>\n<p>Flipkart has also created a separate rider fleet for the food\u2011delivery test. These riders, who wear jerseys branded with the \u201cEat\u2011in by Minutes\u201d logo, operate under Ekart, the company\u2019s logistics subsidiary, and are distinct from the riders who handle Flipkart\u2019s quick\u2011commerce deliveries. The move signals a deliberate effort to keep food\u2011delivery operations independent from the fast\u2011moving grocery and essentials business.<\/p>\n<p>Restaurant listings for the pilot draw from two sources. First, Flipkart taps into the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), a government\u2011backed platform that links buyers and sellers across multiple online services. Second, the company has signed up restaurants directly, giving it a hybrid supply base as it prepares for a broader consumer launch.<\/p>\n<h2>Market context and growth prospects<\/h2>\n<p>India\u2019s online food\u2011delivery market is expanding rapidly, with brokerage firm Bernstein estimating an annual growth rate of 18\u202f% to 20\u202f%. Despite this momentum, online orders still represent just over 15\u202f% of the country\u2019s overall food\u2011services industry, indicating substantial room for new entrants.<\/p>\n<p>Current incumbents Zomato, owned by Eternal, and Swiggy together serve an estimated 85\u202fmillion to 95\u202fmillion paying customers each year, according to Bernstein. Their dominance underscores the challenge facing any newcomer, but also highlights the untapped potential of the remaining 85\u202f% of the market that still orders food through offline channels.<\/p>\n<p>Flipkart\u2019s entry follows a series of high\u2011profile attempts by global tech giants that have struggled to gain a foothold. Amazon launched a Bengaluru\u2011based food\u2011ordering service in 2020 but discontinued it after two years. Google\u2019s Areo app, which bundled food ordering with other services, failed to attract sufficient users, and Uber exited the Indian market in 2020 by selling its Uber\u202fEats business to Zomato.<\/p>\n<h2>Pricing strategy and restaurant expectations<\/h2>\n<p>The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), which represents more than 500,000 restaurants nationwide, has welcomed the prospect of a new platform. Its president, Sagar Daryani, described the current duopoly as \u201cmore pathetic\u201d than a monopoly and argued that restaurants need alternative channels.<\/p>\n<p>Flipkart is reportedly proposing a base commission of about 10\u202f% on each order, a stark contrast to the 20\u202f%\u201125\u202f% typical on Zomato and Swiggy. Daryani, who also co\u2011founded the dumpling chain Wow!\u202fMomo Foods, said the lower commission could be a decisive factor for restaurants seeking to reduce costs.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the commission, restaurants often spend 40\u202f%\u201150\u202f% of an order\u2019s value on advertising, discounts, and other promotional expenses on the incumbent platforms. Daryani expects Flipkart\u2019s total cost to sellers to stay around 15\u202f%\u201116\u202f%, allowing eateries to retain a larger share of each sale.<\/p>\n<p>Bernstein projects that new entrants could save customers roughly \u20b920\u2011\u20b930 (about 20\u201130\u202fcents) per order through more efficient operations. While the savings are modest, they may not be sufficient to lure users away from the entrenched players, especially if Zomato and Swiggy respond with deeper discounts.<\/p>\n<h2>Launch timeline and broader strategic implications<\/h2>\n<p>Flipkart has told partner restaurants that it plans a public launch of the food\u2011delivery service by the end of October. The company also intends to expand to five or six additional Indian cities before the close of the year, according to Daryani.<\/p>\n<p>The food\u2011delivery push arrives as Flipkart\u2019s long\u2011awaited stock\u2011market listing remains uncertain. Chief Executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy has not provided a timetable for an initial public offering, even as the firm diversifies into businesses designed to increase the frequency of app usage.<\/p>\n<p>Quick\u2011commerce platforms that originally focused on delivering groceries within minutes have broadened their catalogs to include high\u2011value items such as smartphones. This evolution places them in more direct competition with both Flipkart and Amazon, intensifying the overall e\u2011commerce battle in India.<\/p>\n<p>Flipkart declined to comment on the food\u2011delivery initiative when approached for a statement.<\/p>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Walmart-owned Flipkart is testing an employee\u2011only food\u2011delivery service and aims to launch publicly by October, targeting a market dominated by Zomato and Swiggy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[299],"tags":[2189,1502,3107,216,551,3108],"class_list":["post-2807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-e-commerce","tag-flipkart","tag-food-delivery","tag-india","tag-swiggy","tag-zomato","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsraise.com\/in\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}