Bengaluru, June 24 -- BENGALURU: While competitors fight for every neighbourhood in the metros, Flipkart Minutes is making a contrarian bet that the future of quick commerce will be built in Bharat.

Within two years of launch, the Walmart-owned company's quick commerce arm now operates 1,000 dark stores across more than 130 cities. Further, 90 of the 130 cities are tier II and tier III markets. The company is prioritising smaller cities while rivals deepen their presence in the largest urban centres.

"We just started tier II and tier III expansion earlier this year, and 50% of our new stores are coming in metros and tier I and 50% are in tier II and tier III," Hemant Badri, senior vice president and head, supply chain, AI transformation...