Walmart-owned Flipkart has entered into a strategic and commercial partnership with the Gautam Adani led Adani Group to strengthen its supply chain infrastructure and further enhance its ability to serve its rapidly growing customer base.
"Homegrown e-commerce giant Flipkart is our new strategic partner. In the two-prong partnership, AdaniConneX will build their new Tier 4 data centre and Adani Logistics, India's leader in logistics, will build their 534,000 sqft fulfilment centre. Thousands of new jobs in Mumbai," said Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani in a tweet.
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As per terms of the deal, Flipkart will set up its third data center at Adaniconnex Private Limited Chennai-based facility, leveraging AdaniConneX's world-class expertise and industry-leading data center technology solutions.
Adaniconnex Private Limited is a new joint venture formed between EdgeConneX and Adani Enterprises Limited.
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."
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As part of this partnership, Adani Logistics Limited will construct a massive 534,000 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 center is expected to be operational in Q3 2022 and will have the capacity to house 10 million units of sellers' inventory at any point, said both firms in a joint statement, adding that the facility will enhance local employment and create ~2,500 direct jobs and thousands of indirect jobs.
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."
The data centre has been designed to meet the highest standards in reliability, security, and sustainability, capitalizing 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.