Can Amazon Now trip up Zepto, BlinkIt, Instamart in Mumbai?

Amazon announced on 11 September, Thursday, that it has extended its ultra-fast 10-minute delivery service Amazon Now to select locations in Mumbai, following robust demand and strong performance in Bengaluru and Delhi. This move marks Amazon’s latest push to expand its footprint in India’s competitive quick commerce sector, where it competes with homegrown success stories such as Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy’s Instamart.

Since debuting in Bengaluru earlier this year, Amazon Now has recorded daily order growth of 25 per cent month on month, with Prime members tripling their shopping frequency after switching to the service.

“We launched Amazon Now in Bengaluru earlier this year, delivering essentials in just 10 minutes. The response has exceeded our most optimistic expectations, with daily orders growing at 25 per cent month over month... Driven by this success, we've expanded to over 100 micro-fulfilment centres and plan to add hundreds more across Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai,” says Samir Kumar, VP and country manager of Amazon India.

These micro-fulfilment centres are compact, tech-enabled warehouses strategically placed near major residential areas, allowing Amazon to keep popular essentials close to customers and optimise inventory placement based on hyperlocal demand for maximum efficiency and speed.

The service covers a broad range of daily necessities — from groceries and personal care items to electronics and festive essentials — delivered within minutes, while over 1 million additional items are available for same-day delivery and millions more the next day.

With the rapid scale-up, Amazon plans to continue expanding Amazon Now to more neighbourhoods in the three cities as well as to additional metros in the coming months, ahead of India’s fast-approaching festive season — with Navratri commencing 21 September — and also the 2026 state elections across several states, when demand for quick and reliable delivery surges.

(Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are the four states with elections next year, and Bihar has them just ahead in October–November 2025, with dates yet to be announced.)

However, one of the areas where Amazon will find itself in a bit of a quandary is ready-to-eat offerings — Zepto has Zepto Cafe for limited hours with a cooked food and ready beverages (hot and cold) menu; while Swiggy, which runs Instamart, has recently started flagging ‘Bolt’ for under-10-minutes food deliveries on its main app.

But Zomato’s experience with Zomato Quick, a 15-minute food delivery rollout that failed and has been rolled right back again in May, provides a bit of a cautionary tale.

Customers in the areas where the service operates should be able to see Amazon Now availability on their Amazon app — identified by a ‘10 mins’ icon on the banner.

On many platforms where the service is advertised, customers in the cities that have had a rollout are also given the option of entering their pincode for prioritisation, if the neighbourhood is not yet serviced.

As consumer expectations for convenience and speed rise, Amazon’s aggressive investments in quick commerce infrastructure signal a bold bid for leadership in a market where local rivals have been racing to set the benchmark for rapid, tech-driven home delivery.