Latest news with #Zomato-owned
Mint
23-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Flipkart on track to open 800 dark stores by December as quick commerce booms
Bengaluru/Delhi: Flipkart Minutes, the quick commerce arm of the Walmart-backed e-commerce giant Flipkart, is experiencing a surge in demand, with order volumes doubling nearly every 45 days. This rapid growth is fuelling optimism for the service's ambitious expansion plans, which aim to increase its network of dark stores to 800 by the end of 2025, doubling from the current 400, the company's top executives told Mint. Also Read | As Kabeer Biswas jumps to Flipkart, no resolution yet in sight for Dunzo Currently operating in 17 cities across India, Flipkart Minutes is focusing on deepening its reach within its top-performing urban centres by extending its service to more pin codes. The firm—which entered quick commerce much later than its peers—will continue expanding aggressively to catch up with its rivals and grab a share of the growing market. Also Read | Quick medicine delivery: Startups gear up against giants Flipkart and Swiggy 'We'll go where the customer is. We have built everything from the sustainability perspective and we are very committed to [delivering in] 10 minutes as well," Kanchan Mishra, vice-president at Flipkart, said in an interview. Minutes has helped improve Flipkart's overall customer retention with a larger number of people now transacting on the platform more frequently. 'What we have seen is quick commerce has enabled us to grow our pie in certain categories. We are able to bring customers back more often, and we are able to make our customers buy a much wider set of products from the platform. So it's been adding to the retention of our customer base, adding to the spend per customer on the platform and adding to the transaction per customer on the platform." According to Mishra, nearly 40% of Flipkart Minutes' users make a repeat purchase every two weeks. Flipkart launched Minutes in August 2024 in select pockets of Bengaluru, much after its competitors Swiggy Instamart, Zomato-owned Blinkit, and Zepto. Entering late in the game, Flipkart had lots to catch up on—right from setting up dark stores to matching delivery speed. Quick commerce is projected to grow at over 40% annually through 2030, driven by expansion across categories, geographies, and customer segments, per a report by Bain & Co. While quick commerce began with grocery, 15–20% of its gross merchandise value now comes from categories such as general merchandise, mobile phones, electronics, and apparel. Over two-thirds of all e-grocery orders and a tenth of overall e-retail dollars are being spent on these platforms. To be sure, India's e-retail market touched $60 billion in 2024, per March 2025 estimates by Bain & Co. Meanwhile, quick-commerce gross merchandise value touched $6-7 billion in 2024, with over 20 million annual active shoppers. 'The need for speed for our customers is very evident. We have seen that quick commerce has helped bring in customers more often and enable them to buy a much wider set of products from the platform. It has been adding to the retention and spends per customer," Mishra said. 'Quick commerce is all about building on strengths. Building the hyperlocal and daily essentials business are the two the key things to focus on. And this is an extremely execution-heavy business," said Kabeer Biswas, the newly-appointed head of Flipkart Minutes. Daily essentials account for 90% of Minutes' transactions, while large-ticket items like electronics and beauty and personal care products dominate in terms of order values, Mishra said. Flipkart's quick commerce arm has also benefited from hyperlocal logistics that is now available in commoditized form in India, helping it move ahead despite making a late start compared to its quick commerce peers, Mishra added. 'With hyperlocal density, yes we have had a late start, but given that it is almost commoditized across the country, we have been able to build decent capacity," Mishra said. 'What we see has been playing is the strength of the platform that powers us. We have seen very strong synergies coming in from our shared supply chain and logistics network, where we share warehouses and the logistics network that powers Flipkart. We have seen very strong early adoption coming in from customers as well," Mishra noted. Quick commerce—characterized by high cash burn and unsustainable unit economics—typically requires consistent investment. While Flipkart will continue to infuse capital to expand the service, it doesn't seem to be much bothered about cash burn. 'What plays favourably for us is we have a massive base of customers already available to us that makes our cost of customer acquisition very, very efficient. We already have 75% of the supply chain investments deployed from the larger Flipkart business. That makes our journey to increasing our footprint a lot easier on the cost front. We also have a rich technology platform that's built and operating at scale, which makes go-to-market for us easier," Mishra added. Naturally, competition in quick commerce is heating up, prompting companies to bulk up investments in expanding dark stores and hiring more personnel to keep delivery timelines short. In the third quarter of FY25, Zomato said it will continue to accelerate Blinkit's expansion, burning cash to reach 2,000 dark stores a year ahead of target even as the quick-commerce business pulled down its profit. Net profit of Zomato (rebranded as Eternal) saw a sharp decline of 78% year-on-year (y-o-y) in January-March quarter to ₹39 crore, largely on account of the accelerated investments in its quick-commerce business Blinkit. Swiggy's net loss widened to ₹1,081 crore from ₹555 crore a year ago. Established companies such as Zepto, Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart are already sitting on thousands of dark stores. Blinkit crossed the 1,000 dark store milestone early this year. Rival Swiggy added over 300 dark stores for Instamart, its quick commerce service, taking its store count up to 1,021.
Mint
22-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Tata Digital CEO Naveen Tahilyani steps down to join Prudential Plc
Naveen Tahilyani has resigned as chief executive officer and managing director of Tata Digital after a brief one-year stint, following efforts to scale the firm's super-app model that has seen sluggish growth. Tahilyani will join UK-based asset management firm Prudential Plc as the regional CEO for India, Africa, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, with additional responsibility of the health vertical, the firm said in a statement on Thursday. Tahilyani will join Prudential's business and group executive committee on 29 July, reporting to Prudential's CEO Anil Wadhwani, and will be based in India. Tahilyani's departure raises fresh challenges for Tata Digital. Since Tata Digital was founded in 2019, parent Tata Sons, under chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran, has invested over ₹ 18,000 crore in buying companies like BigBasket and 1MG to build a super-app business. But it has remained a pipe dream. Tata Digital's balance sheet remains far from healthy. In the year ended March 2024, its revenue almost doubled to ₹ 421 crore, while its losses narrowed from ₹ 1,370 crore in FY23 to ₹ 1,201 crore. The CEO's departure comes at a crucial juncture for Tata Digital that has been trying to revive its super-app dreams through Neu, set up in April 2022. It is now banking on quick commerce to take on Swiggy Instamart, Zomato-owned Blinkit and Zepto. The firm has also seen a host of top-level exits in recent years, with the firm's president Mukesh Bansal stepping away from daily operations in early 2023. Tahilyani replaced Pratik Pal as CEO of Tata Digital in February 2024 who served for over five years. Tata Group's ambitious super-app Neu was crucial for the conglomerate as it looked to beat rival firms Adani and Reliance on its digital strategy. Mint reported in 2023 that the super-app is expected to meet just half of the sales target in its debut year, which forced the sprawling Indian corporate to review its digital strategy. Tahilyani was earlier the MD and CEO of Tata AIA for seven years across two separate stints, with a period in between leading AIA's Group Partnership Distribution business across Asia. Prior to his insurance career, he spent 17 years in McKinsey advising banks and insurance companies in Asia. Commenting on Naveen's appointment, Prudential Plc's CEO Anil Wadhwani said, 'Continuing to build our Health pillar, and driving growth across India, Africa, the Philippines, as well as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar are strategic gamechangers for Prudential. I am confident Naveen is the right leader in the right location to deliver the impact we need.'
Business Mayor
30-04-2025
- Business
- Business Mayor
Food delivery can be cheaper if we have access to consumer data: NRAI's Sagar Daryani
Founded in 1982, NRAI represents the interests of over 500,000 restaurants through advocacy, training, research, and industry events. Daryani said that food delivery can only become cheaper if commissions and marketing costs decrease. 'For marketing costs to go down, we need to get a database, which we feel is our democratic right. My marketing funnelling can be better today if I know my customers. I can reduce costs by knowing exactly who I am tracking because today, as a customer, there is cross-pollination,' he said. The NRAI President further said that questions such as the frequency of app usage, the timings of the app visits, consumption patterns, and whether the consumption is online or offline are all significant data points to funnel market spends in a better manner. 'If my cost comes down, I will not keep my online pricing higher than offline pricing and will pass on that benefit to the customer,' he said. Daryani elaborated on the prevalence of this practice among food aggregators, stating that their rationale is rooted in the belief that the data should not be misused. 'Data is their main asset. Today, whatever number they throw at us, we believe them blindly. We have no other source,' he January this year, Zomato-owned Blinkit and Swiggy launched standalone apps Bistro and Snacc, respectively, for 10-minute food delivery. This was perceived as a setback for the restaurant industry, which had sought the intervention of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) regarding these unfair trade agreement with Daryani, Arun Moral, MD of Primus Partners India, explained that food aggregator platforms can utilise technology to potentially influence consumer preferences by offering personalised recommendations, manipulating search results, and utilising data to target specific demographics. To address this, he noted that certain tech interventions may involve data anonymisation and a differential privacy approach. 'This will ensure that user data cannot be traced back to the respective individuals. Companies like Apple and Google have adopted differential privacy to enhance user data protection. Algorithmic transparency tools can help to make sure that recommendation and ranking algorithms operate fairly and without bias towards the platform's own services,' he said. Read More How consumers fell out of love with The Body Shop In response to Zomato and Swiggy, restaurants are reportedly in discussions with ride-hailing app Rapido to add food delivery as a service on its platform, according to a report in ET in March. The report indicated that this would challenge the current commission structures imposed by Zomato and Swiggy. The current developments in the food sector have particularly had an impact on the smaller food eateries. Alluding to how the smaller players in the food industry are faring, Daryani stated that they have it as 'very tough' right now. 'There is a sense of fear, and they are finding it very difficult to survive. The smaller brands are feeling the heat. It just goes back to survival of the fittest. The industry looks very lucrative from outside, but from inside, when you enter, one can feel the pain deeply,' he said. Giving an insight into the new trends taking shape within the food sector, Daryani spoke about the popularity of K-pop culture. 'The K-pop culture has come in. Every QSR, for instance, has Korean drinks. Wow! Momo does Korean momos, McDonald's does Korean burgers and KFC has Korean chicken. Besides this, Gen Z is ordering 75% more online, so the industry is becoming more deal centric. Restaurateurs are creating more products below Rs 100 since that is selling a lot. Gen Z is focusing more on value addition and value creation in regional cuisines. Another trend shows that innovation is also happening in the existing cuisines, like more cheese rolls or lasagna get delivered now,' he stated. Read More Shoplifting in England and Wales rises to new 20-year high Elaborating more on the emerging trends, the NRAI President said that frozen foods are fast gaining traction. 'Frozen will become the new fresh. Especially for an Indian climate, the food made in the morning is not able to retain its healthiness quotient till evening. Frozen helps to keep the nutrients intact.' Talking about the fourth edition of the NRAI Food Delivery Summit 2025, Daryani said that the idea is to discuss the pain points of the industry for meaningful and sustainable solutions. 'We have topics like how to improve unit economics; quick commerce and how to make money out of it; how to make marketing more focused and the like. We also have specialised workshops on fund raising and investments.' The summit is expected to bring together industry leaders, entrepreneurs and technology innovators to discuss the current challenges and opportunities in the industry as well as within the food delivery space.
Time of India
29-04-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Food delivery can be cheaper if we have access to consumer data: NRAI's Sagar Daryani
Sagar Daryani , President of the National Restaurant Association of India ( NRAI ), on Tuesday discussed the issue of limited access to consumer data , which contributes to rising marketing costs. He noted that this situation is rendering food delivery as an expensive proposition in the present scenario. #Pahalgam Terrorist Attack The groundwork before India mounts a strike at Pakistan India considers closing airspace to Pakistani carriers amid rising tensions Cold Start: India's answer to Pakistan's nuclear threats 'We don't have the data for our respective brands. Food aggregators Swiggy and Zomato have the entire tech stack; nothing stops them from migrating our consumers to their platform. So, we feel it is not a level playing field, and we have been cornered,' he said during an interaction with ET Digital ahead of the NRAI Food Delivery Summit on Wednesday. 'NRAI is working on the matter with its legal teams,' he said. Founded in 1982, NRAI represents the interests of over 500,000 restaurants through advocacy, training, research, and industry events. Daryani said that food delivery can only become cheaper if commissions and marketing costs decrease. 'For marketing costs to go down, we need to get a database, which we feel is our democratic right. My marketing funnelling can be better today if I know my customers. I can reduce costs by knowing exactly who I am tracking because today, as a customer, there is cross-pollination,' he said. The NRAI President further said that questions such as the frequency of app usage, the timings of the app visits, consumption patterns, and whether the consumption is online or offline are all significant data points to funnel market spends in a better manner. 'If my cost comes down, I will not keep my online pricing higher than offline pricing and will pass on that benefit to the customer,' he said. Live Events Daryani elaborated on the prevalence of this practice among food aggregators, stating that their rationale is rooted in the belief that the data should not be misused. 'Data is their main asset. Today, whatever number they throw at us, we believe them blindly. We have no other source,' he lamented. In January this year, Zomato-owned Blinkit and Swiggy launched standalone apps Bistro and Snacc, respectively, for 10-minute food delivery. This was perceived as a setback for the restaurant industry, which had sought the intervention of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) regarding these unfair trade practices. In agreement with Daryani, Arun Moral, MD of Primus Partners India, explained that food aggregator platforms can utilise technology to potentially influence consumer preferences by offering personalised recommendations, manipulating search results, and utilising data to target specific demographics. To address this, he noted that certain tech interventions may involve data anonymisation and a differential privacy approach. 'This will ensure that user data cannot be traced back to the respective individuals. Companies like Apple and Google have adopted differential privacy to enhance user data protection. Algorithmic transparency tools can help to make sure that recommendation and ranking algorithms operate fairly and without bias towards the platform's own services,' he said. In response to Zomato and Swiggy, restaurants are reportedly in discussions with ride-hailing app Rapido to add food delivery as a service on its platform, according to a report in ET in March. The report indicated that this would challenge the current commission structures imposed by Zomato and Swiggy. The current developments in the food sector have particularly had an impact on the smaller food eateries . Alluding to how the smaller players in the food industry are faring, Daryani stated that they have it as 'very tough' right now. 'There is a sense of fear, and they are finding it very difficult to survive. The smaller brands are feeling the heat. It just goes back to survival of the fittest. The industry looks very lucrative from outside, but from inside, when you enter, one can feel the pain deeply,' he said.
Hindustan Times
29-04-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Blinkit suspends 150 gig workers for demanding better pay, drinking water: report
Around 150 Blinkit gig workers went on a strike in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh this weekend demanding fair pay, better working conditions and cotton uniforms for the summer. They now claim that the Zomato-owned grocery delivery platform responded by blocking their IDs – citing the strike as the reason – and made them sign an agreement to have their IDs unblocked. Nirmal Gorana, National Coordinator, Gig and Platform Services Workers Union, told Deccan Herald that Blinkit suspended 150 delivery executives in retaliation for their two-day strike on Saturday and Sunday. The gig workers were demanding an end to mandatory work hours between 12 to 4 pm, an increase in minimum wage, and basic amenities like shaded waiting areas and drinking water, Gorana said. has reached out to Blinkit for a response. This copy will be updated when the company responds. Visuals shared on social media by the Gig and Platform Services Workers Union (GIPSWU) show a group of Blinkit gig workers – dressed in their signature yellow uniform – holding up a placard demanding that the company stop harassing its riders. The gig workers are demanding an 'end to mandatory work between 12-4 pm and cotton uniforms for the summer, among other things. On Reddit, a person who claims to have worked for Zomato explained that the company offers incentives based on delivery time and the number of deliveries a rider completes. 'Day shift incentives are more ( 500 for dinner's 350 ) but order delivery required is more ( 27 for dinner's 17 ). Two shifts are mandatory, 3+ hours in 12 to 4pm shift and 8pm to 10pm, to be eligible for day shift incentives,' the person said, adding this might explain why Blinkit workers are demanding an end to mandatory shifts. GIPSWU claims that Blinkit has suspended the riders involved in the protest. They were also asked to sign an agreement 'allowing Blinkit to take any action if they stage any protest in the future,' Deccan Herald reported. Blinkit workers were made to sign documents that did not carry the company's letterhead or contain any contractual details. In addition, they were asked to record a video holding the document and declaring their agreement to its contents. DH has reviewed a copy of the document. 'On April 26, 2025, 150 Blinkit workers in Shri Ram Colony, Varanasi, UP went on strike. Instead of addressing the workers' concerns, Blinkit management accused them and, when operations were disrupted, blocked the IDs of approximately 150 workers, citing the strike as the reason,' GIPSWU wrote on X. 'On April 27, 2025, a company representative threatened the striking workers with police action and demanded they sign affidavits vowing to never strike again. The workers remain resolute in their demands,' it added.
