Amazon fuels $15-bn sell-off in Eternal, Swiggy

E-comm giant's quick commerce push with Flipkart has shaken investor confidence in Blinkit & Instamart

- ALEX GABRIEL SIMON

ETERNAL AND SWIGGY got the 10-minute delivery party going in India. Now, e-commerce titans Amazon.com and Walmart's Flipkart are looking to crash it.

Eternal, whose Blinkit does doorstep delivery of everything from eggs to electronics within minutes, has slipped 27% from its October all-time high, while rival Instamart's owner Swiggy has plunged about 48% from its recent peak in September. That adds up to a selloff of $15 billion for the duo as investors get spooked by the onslaught of competition.

Amazon and Flipkart are doubling down on India's booming $11 billion rapid-commerce segment, building out their network of last-mile warehouses, called dark stores, to push into smaller cities. Meanwhile, Zepto plans to raise as much as $1 billion via an initial public offering, amassing a war chest to take on market leader Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart.

"The challenge right now is that the competition is really high, so near-term profitability is depressed," Franklin Templeton fund manager Yi Ping Liao, who holds shares in Eternal, said in an interview. "The risk is the duration of the competitive intensity."

Seattle-based Amazon, which started ultra-fast deliveries last year, is making up for its delayed entry. It announced plans last week to expand the Amazon Now service to more than 300 Indian cities and towns, up from more than 15 right now, as it pledges to invest $13 billion more to build its AI and cloud infrastructure in the country.