Flipkart enters into a strategic, commercial partnership with Adani Group

Flipkart on Monday announced it had entered into a strategic and commercial partnership with the Adani Group. Under the partnership, Flipkart will work with Adani’s logistics unit to strengthen its supply chain infrastructure in the country. The e-commerce company added that it would set up its third data centre at Adaniconnex Private Limited’s Chennai-based facility. 

According to the official release, Adani Logistics Limited set up a massive 534,000 sq. ft. fulfilment centre in its upcoming logistics hub in Mumbai and will be leased to Flipkart. The centre expected to be operational in Q3 2022 and will have the capacity to house 10 million units of sellers’ inventory at any point. Flipkart added that the centre would also help support MSMEs and sellers on its platform. It claimed the facility will help create about 2,500 direct jobs and thousands of indirect jobs.

On the data centre, Flipkart said that the AdaniConnecX facility will be a brand-new facility and allow the e-commerce company to design the data centre based on its infrastructure needs along with a focus on security and keeping the data local.

“These investments will help us strengthen our presence and capabilities in India to support MSMEs and sellers while also accelerating job creation and growth,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, Chief Executive Officer, Flipkart Group.

“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,” Karan Adani, Chief Executive Officer of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ).

The latest announcement comes amid reports of Walmart-owned Flipkart planning for an IPO in the fourth quarter of this year that could value the company at over $35 billion.