Flipkart, the Walmart-owned Indian e-commerce giant, is preparing to challenge India’s food-delivery duopoly of Zomato and Swiggy. It is entering a fiercely competitive market that has defeated even previous attempts by Amazon and Google to break in.
The Bengaluru-based company is testing its food-delivery service internally and has expanded the trial from a few hundred employees to upwards of 8,000, according to two people familiar with the matter. It has also deployed a dedicated fleet of riders through its logistics arm, Ekart, separate from the riders who handle its quick-commerce deliveries, as it prepares for a public launch.
The employee-only service appears as a separate tab on Flipkart’s main shopping app, alongside its Minutes quick-commerce offering and travel bookings, TechCrunch has learned. It draws on restaurants listed through ONDC, a government-backed network that connects online buyers and sellers across different platforms, as well as restaurants that Flipkart signed up directly.
