India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace Flipkart on Monday announced a strategic and commercial partnership with the Adani Group. Flipkart will work with Adani Logistics Limited to strengthen Flipkart’s supply chain infrastructure and further enhance its ability to serve its rapidly growing base of customers, Adani Group said in a regulatory filing.
In addition, Flipkart will set up its third data centre at Adaniconnex Private Limited Chennai based facility.
As part of this partnership, Adani Logistics Limited will construct 534,000 sq. ft. fulfilment centre in its upcoming logistics hub in Mumbai that will be leased to Flipkart to address the growing demand for e-commerce in Western India and support market access of several thousands of sellers and MSMEs in the region.]
The centre is expected to be operational in Q3 2022 and will have the capacity to house 10 million units of sellers’ inventory at any point.
In addition to strengthening Flipkart’s supply chain infrastructure to support MSMEs and sellers, the facility will enhance local employment and create 2,500 direct jobs and thousands of indirect jobs.
Speaking on the strategic partnership between the two companies, Karan Adani, Chief Executive Officer of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) said, “I am delighted to see two of India’s fastest-growing businesses come together to help build some of the most critical as well as state-of-the-art infrastructure that our nation needs. This is what Atmanirbharta should be all about.”
“This broad-ranging partnership across our logistics and data centre businesses is a unique business model, and we see this as a great opportunity to serve Flipkart’s physical as well as digital infrastructure needs. Flipkart has been instrumental in defining e-commerce adoption in India, both through the value it creates and its constant technological innovation to serve its consumers. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership as we focus on learning from each other as well as leveraging our mutual strengths to prioritise consumers and development of India’s MSME ecosystem,” he added.
Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Chief Executive Officer, Flipkart Group, said, “The Adani Group is unmatched in the way it has gone about building infrastructure across India. What it brought to us was a unique combination of logistics, real estate, green energy, and data centre infrastructure capabilities. We are delighted to initiate our association with the Adani Group to strengthen our supply chain and technology infrastructure.”
“At the Flipkart Group, we are focused on ensuring that our customers get access to a wide range of products made available by sellers across the country as we continuously innovate to drive greater affordability. Our logistics network and technology stack are instrumental in making this a reality. These investments will help us strengthen our presence and capabilities in India to support MSMEs and sellers while also accelerating job creation and growth,” Krishnamurthy added.