Amazon to take Q-comm to 100 cities

Mumbai: Amazon is betting big on its quick commerce business, with plans afoot to take the instant delivery service to 100 cities from three locations now as it plays catch-up with rivals Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto, which together hold the bulk of the market share.

The development comes a few days after the firm made a fresh $300 million bet on India as part of its target of deploying over $35 billion in the country by 2030. In a statement on Monday, Amazon said its quick commerce service will expand to a clutch of smaller cities including Jaipur, Lucknow, Kanpur and Meerut alongside metros Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. Eternal's Blinkit leads the quick commerce market with over 40% share and more than 25 lakh orders per day while Amazon Now delivers an estimated 3.5 lakh orders a day, analysts said. Amazon will shore up its current network of 360 micro-fulfilment centres to over 1,000 to cater to more cities.

"The density of Amazon's store network is not comparable to that of Blinkit. Amazon's first priority will be to get all its Prime customers to shop from its quick commerce service 'Now'. For that, they have to ramp up their operations. Also, assortment will be a big focus for them," said Satish Meena, founder at Datum Intelligence.

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