2 days ago
IPL 2025: Restaurants see strong delivery growth driven by cricket fever
New Delhi: The just-ended 18th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) continued to drive growth for restaurants, especially those doing deliveries.
The eateries business grew by up to 20% as late evening matches kept the order tap flowing.
With record viewership annually, the boom was in line with growth seen during previous editions.
The importance of IPL has only grown for restaurant chains, especially as they have struggled with tepid demand in the December quarter and the early part of the March quarter.
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The Twenty20 cricket tourney began on 22 March and ended on 3 June.
Jasper Reid, entrepreneur and founder of International Market Management Ltd (IMM), a London-based firm that brings international consumer brands to India and operates Jamie's Italian and Jamie's Pizzeria in the country, said IPL continues to be a valuable part of their delivery marketing playbook.
'We prioritize IPL in our delivery marketing calendar because it has a proven track record of driving orders. In April, delivery was up 39% and dine-in rose 6%. In May, delivery growth slowed to 5%, while dine-in increased by 30%, partly because of the India-Pakistan situation which led to the IPL being paused briefly. For us, the key challenge is to maintain and improve margins even as we compete for customer attention during such high-traffic periods," he said.
'IPL continues to be a strong growth period for us, with this year's season delivering a 7–10% uptick in overall business. Interestingly, 60–70% of this growth has been driven by dinner orders, underlining how match timings align perfectly with peak delivery hours. Our top 10 cities are leading the charge, contributing to 60% of the growth of our total business," said Aayush Madhusudan Agrawal, Founder and Director, Lenexis Foodwork.
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"We've also seen a surge in new customer acquisitions across both dine-in and delivery formats during the tournament and our focus now shifts to retaining this expanded base. Notably, three of the four weeks in May were our best-performing weeks in terms of business, making this IPL season one of the most impactful for us so far."
The company operates over 235 restaurant outlets and over 200 cloud kitchens; it operates a portfolio of distinct brands—Chinese Wok, The Momo Co. and Big Bowl.
Rising viewership
As per JioStar, the official broadcaster of the IPL, the reach of both TV and digital crossed 450 million each by the time the tournament was suspended on 9 May following the conflict between India-Pakistan. It resumed on 17 May.
Restaurant booking platform EazyDiner Private Ltd reported a 35% increase year-on-year in dine-in bookings across cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Pune where the matches were being screened live, according to Sachin Pabreja, its co-founder.
Some restaurants claimed a significant surge in late-night orders during the season.
Wow! Momo experienced a 12-14% increase in IPL-driven orders, primarily through deliveries, with late-night deliveries seeing a particular surge.
'IPL basically precedes a lean period for us, i.e., the period between February and March isn't a high demand generating period for the industry. In that sense, IPL is a big consumption booster. However, this year, the conflict between India-Pakistan also dampened sales for a few days, but it picked up later. IPL is a self-sustaining event now with companies not ramping up marketing spends significantly. It's a ready-made occasion since people tune in to watch matches almost daily. So it's organic growth for us," said Sagar Daryani, chief executive officer (CEO) and founder, Wow Momo!
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Food ordering platforms Zomato and Swiggy did not comment on their IPL stats for the season.
Meanwhile, bars and cafes said IPL had less impact on sales, with people opting to view matches at home—the trend that helped fuel demand for online orders.
"Our dining business did not grow so much because we don't screen matches but we saw a good spike in our delivery business, that's really helped us grow during this time," said Amit Bagga, co-founder of food chain, Daryaganj, which saw a 9% jump in the delivery business during the IPL.
