Flipkart Minutes overtakes Instamart's dark-store count in top 10 cities
What's the story
Flipkart's quick commerce service, Minutes, has outpaced Swiggy's Instamart in terms of dark-store count and pincode coverage across India's top 10 cities. According to a CLSA report, as of August, Minutes had 627 dark stores in these cities while Instamart had 615. However, Blinkit still leads the pack with a whopping 969 dark stores across the same regions.
Market growth
Rapid expansion since launch
Flipkart launched Minutes in August 2024, entering a market already dominated by Blinkit, Zepto, and Instamart.
Since then, it has rapidly expanded its fulfillment footprint across metros and smaller cities.
In June 2026, the company announced that Minutes had crossed 1,000 micro-fulfillment centers across over 130 cities and more than 8,000 pincodes.
The dark-store count is a measure of each company's footprint rather than a direct indicator of market position.
Future goals
Focus on Tier-III cities
Flipkart has previously stated that it is adding over 100 stores a month and aims to have 1,500 dark stores by the end of 2026.
The company's strategy is mainly focused on smaller cities.
CLSA's latest mapping shows that Flipkart Minutes has increased its presence in Tier-III cities by 42 times in the past year, including Ara and Muzaffarpur in Bihar.
Performance metrics
Closing the gap on daily orders
Recent estimates suggest that Minutes is also closing the gap with Instamart on daily orders.
Moneycontrol reported earlier that Minutes now handles over one million orders a day, compared to Instamart's roughly 1.3-1.45 million.
This puts Flipkart within striking distance of Instamart on another key scale measure, even as Blinkit and Zepto remain further ahead in the race for quick commerce dominance in India.