Flipkart, the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce giant, is gearing up to mount a formidable challenge against the country’s entrenched food-delivery duopoly of Zomato and Swiggy. The Bengaluru-based retail titan is entering a fiercely competitive market that has historically proved punishing for well-capitalized tech heavyweights, having previously defeated similar expansionist attempts by global giants like Amazon and Google.
The domestic e-commerce pioneer is currently testing its food-delivery service through internal channels, having aggressively expanded the trial from an initial pool of a few hundred corporate employees to upwards of 8,000 testers, according to multiple people familiar with the matter. As part of its preparations for a broader public rollout, the company has deployed a dedicated fleet of delivery riders operating through its proprietary logistics arm, Ekart. These riders function entirely separate from the personnel who handle Flipkart’s rapid-fire quick-commerce deliveries, establishing a distinct operational framework for the new culinary vertical.
For the participating employees, the food-delivery service appears as a distinct, dedicated tab directly within Flipkart’s primary shopping application. It sits alongside the company’s "Minutes" quick-commerce offering and its established travel-booking services. To populate its digital storefront, the platform draws from a dual-source restaurant pipeline: it utilizes eateries listed through ONDC, the government-backed open network designed to seamlessly connect online buyers and sellers across disparate platforms, alongside a roster of local restaurants that Flipkart has signed up through direct partnerships.
On the streets of Bengaluru, the southern Indian technology hub where Flipkart is headquartered, visible signs of the pilot program have begun to emerge. Delivery personnel wearing distinctive jerseys bearing "Eat-in by Minutes" branding have been spotted fulfilling orders across various neighborhoods, signaling that the internal trial is operating under near-market conditions.
As Flipkart lays the groundwork to scale its food-delivery operations, it is stepping into an industry that brokerage firm Bernstein estimates is expanding at a robust rate of 18% to 20% annually. Despite this impressive growth trajectory, online delivery still accounts for just over 15% of India’s broader food-services industry, pointing to substantial untapped potential. Zomato, owned by Eternal, and Swiggy together serve an estimated 85 million to 95 million paying customers a year, according to Bernstein data. That massive footprint highlights both the profound dominance of the two incumbents and the vast runway available for new entrants aiming to expand online food ordering in the world’s most populous country, which boasts more than a billion active internet subscriptions.
Flipkart is far from the only player attempting to disrupt India’s heavily consolidated food-delivery landscape. Ride-hailing company Rapido, which has already applied significant competitive pressure to Uber and its domestic rival Ola in the mobility sector, has been actively expanding "Ownly," its proprietary food-delivery service designed to undercut competitors by charging restaurants zero commission. Meanwhile, Swiggy has launched "Toing," a separate application specifically tailored for budget-conscious consumers looking for more affordable meal options. Both strategic moves reflect intensifying pressure on the industry’s long-standing pricing architecture and the steep commission rates historically levied against restaurant partners.
"Monopoly is bad, but duopoly is more pathetic," said Sagar Daryani, president of the New Delhi-headquartered National Restaurant Association of India, an organization representing more than 500,000 restaurants nationwide. "What one does, the other follows suit." Daryani argued that the restaurant community has long sought viable alternatives to the two dominant platforms to restore a healthier market balance.
Flipkart is notably not the first deep-pocketed corporate entity to try breaking into India’s lucrative food-delivery sector. In 2020, Amazon launched a dedicated food-ordering service in Bengaluru, only to shut the entire operation down two years later after struggling to capture meaningful market share. Similarly, Google’s Areo app, which attempted to bundle food ordering alongside various home services, failed to gain sufficient traction among consumers. Ride-hailing giant Uber also exited the direct delivery market in 2020, opting to sell its entire Uber Eats business in India to Zomato for $206 million.
Despite these historical precedents, Daryani highlights one critical strategic difference between Flipkart and the foreign-backed companies that attempted food delivery in the past. While Zomato and Swiggy built their foundational enterprises around food delivery before subsequently expanding into quick commerce, Flipkart is executing the reverse strategy. The company is leveraging its massive, established e-commerce infrastructure and its rapidly scaling quick-commerce operations as an operational springboard into the food-delivery sector.
"Flipkart’s quick commerce benefit will get passed on to food delivery, so it will be leaner, more efficient," Daryani noted, emphasizing the logistical synergies available to the retail giant.
Restaurant operators are also heavily banking on new market entrants to drive down the systemic costs of selling meals online. Daryani, who also serves as the co-founder and CEO of prominent dumpling chain Wow! Momo Foods, revealed that Flipkart has proposed a baseline commission structure of approximately 10%. This is substantially lower than the 20% to 25% commission rates that restaurants are typically forced to pay Zomato and Swiggy.
Commissions, however, represent only a fraction of the total expenditure incurred by eateries. Once mandatory advertising placements, promotional discounts, and other hidden marketing costs are factored into the equation, restaurants can easily end up spending between 40% and 50% of an order’s total value on the established platforms. Daryani stated he expects Flipkart to keep that aggregate operational cost much closer to 15% or 16%, a shift that could allow independent restaurants to retain a significantly larger share of revenue from every order processed.
Nonetheless, industry analysts point out that successfully onboarding restaurants is entirely distinct from winning over everyday consumers. Bernstein estimates that new market entrants might only be able to save customers roughly 20 to 30 Indian rupees—equivalent to about 20 to 30 cents—per order by running more efficient supply chains. That minor savings margin may not prove sufficient on its own to pry loyal users away from Zomato and Swiggy, particularly if the established incumbents respond by deploying deeper promotional discounts and loyalty incentives.
Despite these consumer-side hurdles, Flipkart has no intention of keeping its ambitions confined to Bengaluru for long. The company has communicated to restaurant partners that it intends to launch the food-delivery service publicly before the end of October, with plans to expand its operational footprint to five or six major Indian cities by the close of the year.
This aggressive food-delivery push also arrives at a time when Flipkart’s long-anticipated initial public offering remains shrouded in uncertainty. Chief Executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy recently declined to commit to a definitive timetable for an IPO, even as the firm presses forward with high-frequency retail expansions designed to keep users returning to its application on a daily basis.
Flipkart’s broader market maneuvers coincide with an intensification of competition across India’s digital retail ecosystem. Quick-commerce platforms that initially built their business models around delivering groceries within minutes have rapidly diversified, now offering discretionary high-value purchases such as the latest iPhones and consumer electronics. This evolution places them in increasingly direct competition with traditional e-commerce mainstays like Flipkart and Amazon.
Flipkart did not respond to requests for comment regarding its upcoming public launch plans or operational metrics for the ongoing pilot program.
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