Zomato's net profit jumped 126.5 times to hit Rs 253 crore in the April-June quarter (Q1), compared to the year ago period, even as the food aggregator hiked platform fees charged to consumers and saw an improvement in the operational profitability of its quick commerce arm Blinkit.
This also marked the fifth straight quarter of Zomato's earnings coming in the green.
Its revenue rose 74 percent year-on-year to Rs 4,206 crore at a time when the broader e-commerce sector is reeling under the pressure of high inflation and muted demand.
During the same quarter last year, Zomato had posted a net profit for the first time —of Rs 2 crore — and revenue of Rs 2,416 crore.
Since then, the food delivery company's stock price has been surging on the back of rising profitability in its core business and the fast growth of its quick commerce arm, Blinkit.
Zomato's stock price has jumped 174 percent over the past one year and is currently trading at a P/E ratio of about 148 times. Its market capitalisation has risen to more than Rs 2 lakh crore (over $25 billion).
Zomato's food delivery gross order value (GOV, a measure of sales in e-commerce) increased 27 percent to Rs 9,264 crore in the quarter and quick commerce GOV rose 130 percent to Rs 4,923 crore, compared to the year-ago period.
The company said that the advent of quick commerce has made people want things faster than they would have otherwise got from e-commerce. This has led to a direct share shift of a number of non-grocery use cases to quick commerce where customers were primarily reliant on e-commerce for buying these products.
"As of now, we see a line of sight of getting to about 2,000 stores for our current business. Most of these stores would be in top 10 cities in India. Beyond the large cities, the size of the market is still undiscovered. If everything goes as planned (which usually doesn’t), we plan to get to 2,000 stores, latest by the end of 2026 while remaining profitable," Blinkit chief Albinder Dhindsa said.
"Our average GOV (gross order value) throughput per store has grown from about Rs 6 lakh per day per store when we were at 383 stores exactly a year ago to about Rs 10 lakh today when we are at 639 stores. For our top 50 stores today, this number is Rs 18 lakh per day per store, and growing," he added.
New app
Meanwhile, the company has announced the launch of a new consumer app called 'District' for its going-out business, marking a wider foray into an array of lifestyle services, encompassing dining out, movies, sports ticketing, live performances, shopping, staycations, and more--all within a single platform.
“Today, Zomato and Blinkit are our two large consumer businesses, serving customers' needs at home. However, we also have one of India’s largest 'going-out' businesses, helping our customers discover restaurants for dining out,” founder Deepinder Goyal said.
This business, profitable, is operating at a run-rate of over $500 million annualized Gross Order Value (GOV) and is already profitable, he noted.
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