The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
BENGALURU/AHMEDABAD, APRIL 12, 2021
India’s leading homegrown e-commerce marketplace Flipkart on Monday announced a strategic and commercial partnership with the country’s largest multinational infrastructure company, the Adani Group.
In this two-pronged partnership, Flipkart will work with Adani Logistics Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Adani Ports & Special Economic Zone Limited, to strengthen Flipkart’s supply chain infrastructure and further enhance its ability to serve its rapidly growing base of customers.
In addition, Flipkart will set up its third data centre at Adaniconnex Private Limited Chennai based facility, leveraging AdaniConneX’s world-class expertise and industry-leading data centre technology solutions.
Adaniconnex Private Limited is a new Joint Venture formed between EdgeConneX and Adani Enterprises Limited.
As part of this partnership, Adani Logistics Limited will construct a massive 5,34,000 square feet 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.
The partnership will also see Flipkart developing its third data centre at the AdaniConnecX facility as a part of one of the largest private cloud deployments in the country, thereby further strengthening its growing marketplace e-commerce business in India.
The data centre has been designed to meet the highest standards in reliability, security, and sustainability, which will capitalise on the Adani Group’s capability as the largest solar player in the country to generate and source green power. The AdaniConneX data centre is a brand-new facility enabling Flipkart to design the data centre to its growing infrastructure needs with a significant focus on security and keeping data locally within India.
Speaking on the strategic partnership between the two companies, Karan Adani, CEO of Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) said: “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: “We are delighted to initiate our association with the Adani Group to strengthen our supply chain and technology infrastructure.”
He said that Flipkart Group is focused on ensuring that its 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,” he added.
