Amazon and Flipkart threaten Google-Meta's duopoly in India
Amazon and Flipkart are now functioning as walled gardens similar to Google and Meta, closed ecosystems where they control user data, ad inventory, and measurement. Brands increasingly see them as safe compounds rivaling Google and Meta in both scale and strategy.
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Half of India’s festive advertising spends are now flowing into commerce media, led by Amazon and Flipkart. The two giants have turned into advertising powerhouses, with Amazon’s ad revenues touching Rs 6,649 crore in FY24 and Flipkart’s hitting Rs 4,972 crore. Together, they pulled in Rs 11,621 crore (about $1.4 billion), a 33 percent jump year-on-year, underscoring how retail media has already crossed the billion-dollar mark in India and is rapidly reshaping the digital ad economy.
A structural shift, not a festive anomaly
“This is absolutely a structural shift that has been accelerating over the past three to four years,” says Rahul Sankratayan, Head of Media and Growth at ThinkROI Digital. “What we are seeing during festive season is just the magnification of a trend that is already happening year-round. Brands have realised that commerce media delivers immediate, trackable ROI in ways that traditional awareness campaigns struggle to match.”
The attraction lies in closed loop attribution, the ability to connect ad exposure directly to purchases within the same ecosystem. “The data does not lie. When you can see direct attribution from ad spend to cart additions and purchases within the same ecosystem, brand custodians start asking tougher questions about spends on other platforms,” Sankratayan explains. “We have had clients redirect 50 to 60 percent of their festive budgets to Amazon and Flipkart simply because the ROAS is measurable and consistent.”
Meher Patel, Founder of Hector AI, a Wondrlab platform adds, “Google and Meta do not enable commerce directly. You cannot buy on their platforms. TikTok is exploring this with TikTok Shop, where transactions happen in-platform. This is called closed loop attribution: you come on Amazon, search, click, and buy — all within one ecosystem. Amazon knows the entire transaction path and the customer profile, unlike Google and Meta, where attribution is based on third-party signals and is less precise.”
The new advertising powerhouses
In India, Amazon’s ad revenues surged past ₹6,600 crore in FY24, while Flipkart crossed ₹4,900 crore, putting them on par with the country’s largest broadcasters. Together, the two pulled in ₹11,600 crore, accounting for nearly a quarter of India’s digital ad market. Globally, Amazon is expected to generate over $60 billion in ad revenue in 2025, making it the world’s third largest digital ad player behind Google and Meta.
“Amazon and Flipkart are now functioning as walled gardens similar to Google and Meta, closed ecosystems where they control user data, ad inventory, and measurement,” says Vaishal Dalal, Co-founder and Director at Excellent Publicity. “Their scale is formidable, and they offer advertisers rich first-party shopping and purchase data, closed loop attribution, and high intent audiences at the point of purchase. Brands increasingly see them as safe compounds rivaling Google and Meta in both scale and strategy.”
Patel reinforces: “Globally, Amazon and Walmart, Flipkart’s parent, command almost 80 percent of retail media network dollars. The reason is simple: they own both the inventory and the audience, which inherently makes them walled gardens. That dynamic will persist, both worldwide and in India.”
Quick commerce joins the party
While e-commerce giants dominate in scale, quick commerce platforms are emerging as powerful challengers. Zepto has already hit ₹1,000 crore in ad revenues, Blinkit is doubling its ad income year on year, and Swiggy Instamart credits advertising for boosting its margins.
“In the past two years, quick commerce platforms like Zepto and Blinkit have grown their festive ad revenues by over 25 to 30 percent each season,” Sankratayan notes. “They are attracting D2C and FMCG brands with hyperlocal targeting and fast delivery, even as larger platforms stay dominant. The festive market is big enough that these players are not getting squeezed out. They are thriving, especially in impulse and gifting categories.”
The conversion metrics are striking. Q-commerce boasts a 30 percent click-to-conversion rate, compared to 10 percent for Amazon, 5 to 10 percent for Flipkart, and about 5 percent on brand websites. For festive campaigns focused on immediacy and last-mile delivery, this makes Blinkit and Zepto especially attractive.
The funnel flips: performance over brand
The rise of commerce media is also altering the balance between brand building and performance marketing. “The move toward commerce media has tilted budgets toward lower funnel activation,” says Sankratayan. “More spend is being directed at driving immediate conversions rather than upper funnel brand building. While this drives strong festive sales, it also means that brands may be investing less in long-term equity or nurturing broader audiences. Balancing performance marketing with brand investment is key to sustaining growth beyond the festive window.”
Gopa Menon, COO & Co-founder at Theblur adds, “Quick commerce alone generating 50 percent of Amazon India’s ad revenue demonstrates how rapidly new formats can scale. This creates a challenging environment for Google and Meta, who must now compete not just with each other but with platforms that own the entire purchase funnel. The 9 percent overall growth in the sector masks a more dramatic redistribution of spend toward commerce and away from traditional digital platforms.”
Risks of over reliance
Yet, there are risks in placing too many eggs in one basket. “There is a clear tendency toward over reliance on leading retail media networks,” Sankratayan cautions. “The transparency and clear ROI are irresistible. But the risk is concentration. When your visibility and sales are largely tied to any single external platform, changes in their policies or algorithms can materially impact acquisition costs and campaign effectiveness. Diversification of touch points remains important for brand control.”
This echoes a wider global concern. Experts warn that commerce media’s dominance could distort how marketers measure effectiveness, with too much focus on last click sales at the expense of long-term brand equity. “Commerce media’s strength lies in driving measurable, bottom of funnel results, but that can push marketers to over prioritise ROAS and conversion rates,” notes Dalal. “Not all sales recorded on retail media are incremental. Some are simply harvested demand created by past brand marketing.”
The Google Meta counter
So what is left for the old digital duopoly? “To remain relevant, platforms outside commerce media need to integrate more closely with the shopping journey and prove incremental value,” says Sankratayan. “The counter strategies may include deeper commerce integration, better measurement of cross channel impact, and innovative formats that bridge the gap between brand awareness and purchase.”
Menon puts it more starkly: “Google and Meta are losing their grip on performance marketing budgets as brands discover they can achieve better ROI closer to the point of purchase. This is not just about losing revenue share, it is about losing control over the customer journey data that has been their competitive moat.”
Google and Meta will continue to dominate discovery, reach, and upper funnel branding. BFSI, travel, and auto categories will likely rely on them for awareness. But as Sankratayan stresses, “when the objective is last click conversion or marketplace listing promotions, brands prefer to buy where the sale happens. That reduces the search and social to conversion media flow that used to travel via Meta and Google.”
The new media owners
Globally and locally, commerce platforms are fast emerging as media owners in their own right. In India, retail media already accounts for 23 percent of digital spends, a share that is expected to rise as festive cycles intensify. “Amazon and Flipkart’s ad revenues are already on par with, or higher than, many leading broadcasters and publishers in India,” Dalal points out. “E-commerce platforms are evolving into new power centers of advertising, potentially becoming the biggest media owners in the coming years.”
Rajiv Dhingra, Founder & CEO - ReBid sums it up, “Festivals are a time of purchases. We are seeing a redistribution of ad budgets away from traditional platforms like TV, print, and even Google and Meta. Commerce platforms own both the shelf space and the transaction moment. That gives them a huge advantage. For retail brands, the moment of advertising and the moment of purchase are much closer together on Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Nykaa, and quick commerce platforms.”
The bottom line
India’s festive ad landscape is being redrawn. Amazon, Flipkart, and quick commerce platforms are no longer just sales channels. They are full fledged media ecosystems with unmatched data, accountability, and reach. For brands, the lure of measurable ROI is irresistible. But the trade-off is real: over reliance, short termism, and the risk of ceding too much power to platforms that control both audience and inventory.
As Sankratayan puts it: “Balancing performance with brand building will determine who thrives beyond the festive season.”
