Anil Lingayat, Executive Vice President and Business Head, Material Handling Equipment, Godrej Enterprises Group
The Godrej Enterprises Group is betting ₹350 crore on India’s booming quick-commerce and warehousing sector as its ₹1,000-crore material handling business looks to scale to ₹1,500-2,000 crore over the next two years. The plan is driven by rising demand for forklifts, warehouse automation and intralogistics equipment from companies such as Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart, Flipkart and Amazon, sources aware of the company’s growth plans said.
Godrej has set up a new manufacturing facility at Khalapur near Mumbai with an initial production capacity of 15,000 units annually, five times higher than the roughly 3,000-unit capacity at its earlier Vikhroli plant — with plans to eventually expand capacity to 30,000 units.
While consumers largely see delivery riders and mobile apps, executives say the real operational complexity lies inside warehouses and fulfilment centres where products are constantly sorted, stacked, lifted and replenished in real time to ensure rapid order fulfilment.
“It’s very easy for us to imagine that 10-minute deliver, you just put it in the app and get it. But if you see the backend of how it happens, there is a huge supply chain continuously working,” Anil Lingayat, Executive Vice President and Business Head, Material Handling Equipment, Godrej Enterprises Group, told businessline.
According to Lingayat, the rapid expansion of quick-commerce platforms is creating a cascading warehouse infrastructure chain involving dark stores, fulfilment centres and large distribution hubs, each of which requires mechanised handling systems such as forklifts, reach trucks, stackers and pallet trucks.
“It is a spiralling effect. First the dark stores come in, then the fulfilment centres come in, and then the distribution centres come in,” he explained. That is creating a multiplier effect for intralogistics providers as every layer of the quick-commerce supply chain requires warehouse automation systems and material handling equipment to maintain faster turnaround times and lower fulfilment costs.
Although e-commerce and quick-commerce currently account for around 8% of Godrej Material Handling’s business, the company expects the segment to become one of its fastest-growing demand drivers as online retail platforms expand deeper into Tier-2 and Tier-3 India.
The company expects the material handling business to return to healthy double-digit growth this fiscal after two relatively slower years, supported by rising demand from quick commerce, organised retail, manufacturing and SMEs.
Industry executives say the rise of quick commerce is also sharply increasing SKU complexity inside warehouses, forcing operators to invest in more agile and automated material handling systems capable of handling a wider variety of products within tighter delivery windows.
“SKU sizes will keep on increasing and that becomes a challenge to the industry as to how do we keep on innovating so that we do not let this performance deteriorate,” Lingayat said.
The economics of quick commerce are also making warehouse efficiency increasingly critical as platforms spend heavily on customer acquisition, discounts and faster fulfilment.
India’s material handling market still remains relatively underpenetrated despite the country’s rapidly expanding consumption economy. According to company estimates, annual sales of powered material handling equipment in India stand at just 25,000–26,000 units, translating into an industry size of roughly ₹4,000–4,500 crore.
China, by comparison, is estimated to sell nearly 8,00,000 such units annually.
Lingayat said India’s warehousing ecosystem is now gradually formalising as organised retail, e-commerce, manufacturing and logistics networks expand.
“India is always going to be landlocked. Land costs will rise, so warehousing has to go vertical,” he said, adding that vertical warehousing naturally increases the need for mechanised handling systems and warehouse automation equipment.
Godrej also sees labour shortages and rising workforce costs emerging as another structural trigger for warehouse mechanisation, especially as quick-commerce companies expand into smaller cities where labour availability can become inconsistent.
“As India moves into this curve, I think the cost of labour and availability of people to do menial jobs are also going to drive absorption of these equipments,” Lingayat said.
The business is also emerging as an industrial electrification play. Nearly 80% of Godrej’s material handling portfolio is already electric, with the company saying the sector began electrifying decades before passenger EVs became mainstream in India. “This industry got electrified in the 60s,” Lingayat said.
The company has developed indigenous motors, battery-management systems and locally engineered lithium-ion and multi-ion battery solutions for forklifts and warehouse vehicles, while also exploring non-rare-earth motor technologies as part of its localisation strategy, Lingayat informed businessline
Published on June 10, 2026
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