Eternal Q2 results impact: Shares fall 2.5% as brokerages 'disappointed' with margins

Nuvama said the company's spent a higher-than-expected money on marketing in its quick commerce business, which affected the company's margin during Jul-Sept. However, the brokerage does not expect near-term pressure on margins to slow down the company's growth in revenue.

Nuvama cut its earnings per share estimate for 2025-26 (Apr-Mar) by nearly 57% due to expectations of lower margins going forward, but raised its estimate for revenue by 22%. Similarly, it cut its EPS estimate for FY27 by 9% and raised the estimate for revenue by nearly 38%.

Food delivery and quick commerce firm Eternal, which owns the Zomato and Blinkit brands, on Thursday reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 65 crore for the second quarter ended September, with the quick commerce business contributing significantly to its revenue growth.

The company, which re-branded itself as Eternal in March, had reported a net profit of Rs 176 crore in the June-September quarter of the last fiscal.

In a regulatory filing, Eternal said the results are not comparable with the corresponding quarter last year on account of the acquisition of Orbgen Technologies Pvt Ltd and Wasteland Entertainment Pvt Ltd, holding the 'movie ticketing' and the 'events' businesses, respectively, from One 97 Communications Ltd (Paytm's parent firm), which completed in August 2024.

In a letter to shareholders, Eternal said it expects "a slow uptick in growth rate in the near term" for the food delivery net order value (NOV) for Zomato, due to multiple headwinds including soft discretionary consumption, impact of quick commerce growth and increasingly volatile weather conditions.

"In line with our expectation, NOV growth rate (YoY) did go up in Q2FY26 after declining consistently for the last five quarters. Having said that, the recovery in growth has been slower than expected and we only expect a slow uptick in growth rate in the near term.

"While we continue to work on inputs to the business, we are also constantly fighting multiple headwinds including soft discretionary consumption in general in India, the impact of quick commerce growth and increasingly volatile weather (extreme heat, extended rains), which continue to weigh on near term growth," Eternal Founder Deepinder Goyal stated on the outlook for the food delivery NOV growth rate.

Zomato's food delivery NOV grew 14% YoY, improving slightly from 13% YoY NOV growth in the previous quarter.

During the quarter under review, Eternal's revenue from operations stood at Rs 13,590 crore. It was Rs 4,799 crore in the year-ago period.

It reported a total expense of Rs 13,813 crore in the quarter. It was Rs 4,783 crore a year ago.

Eternal's reporting segments include its India food ordering business, quick commerce, Hyperpure supplies (B2B business), going out, and other segments (residual).

The company's quick commerce net order value (NOV) growth accelerated to 137% year on year to Rs 11,679 crore, its highest ever in the last ten quarters, from Rs 4,928 crore in the corresponding June-September quarter of last year. Its adjusted revenue for the quick commerce segment zoomed multi-fold by 756% to Rs 9,891 crore, from Rs 1,156 crore a year ago, data showed.

Regarding the GST rate rationalisation effective from September 22, Eternal said the GST rate cuts have brought down the average tax on Blinkit's typical basket by close to 3 percentage points, which should drive more demand.

"We certainly expect a positive rub-off on demand due to this from Q3FY26 onwards (given the changes came into effect only towards the end of Q2FY26). As far as Q2FY26 is concerned, we saw a negative impact on both growth and margins as customers went into wait and watch mode delaying their purchases across categories including the ones where no GST rate changes were announced," Eternal CFO Akshant Goyal said.

However, with regard to the impact of GST on the delivery charge in the food delivery business, with 18% GST now applicable on the delivery charge paid by customers on food delivery orders, the Eternal CFO informed that this impacts about 25% of the orders where delivery is not free (platform fee is already subject to 18% GST and does not get impacted by this change).

"This has had a slight negative impact on the growth of the business as we have passed on this tax burden to customers. There was no impact on delivery charge paid by customers on Blinkit - it already includes 18% GST. Given the model of engagement with delivery partners there is different as compared to food delivery and nothing changes on that front for us," Akshant said in the letter to shareholders.

Eternal shared that the transition to the inventory ownership in quick commerce is almost complete with nearly 80% of net order value (NOV) in Q2 FY26 on own inventory model.

However, according to CFO Akshant Goyal, Hyperpure's revenue declined 55% quarter on quarter to Rs 1,023 crore (from Rs 2,295 crore in Q1FY26) driven by a 94% QoQ decline in revenue of the non-restaurant business to Rs 83 crore as it moved to inventory ownership in quick commerce.

With inputs from PTI