Online delivery firm Eternal's shares sharply rallied 7.5 percent to close at Rs 276.50 apiece on NSE. This happened after the company released its results for the first quarter of the financial year 2026.
Zomato's parent company reported a 90 percent on-year drop in net profit to Rs 25 crore in Q1 FY26. Its revenue from operations however rose 70 percent on-year to Rs 7,167 crore during the quarter under review. However, positive management commentary led to Eternal's shares hit five-month high on July 21.
Blinkit beats Zomato in NOV:
Eternal said that Q1 marked the first quarter where Blinkit's net order value (NOV) surpassed that of Zomato. "On an annualized basis, we are now at almost $10 billion of annual NOV across our B2C businesses and quick commerce is now our largest B2C business contributing to almost half of this annualized NOV," said Eternal CFO Akshant Goyal.
Blinkit added 243 stores during the quarter under review, taking its store count to 1,544 stores by the end of the quarter. "We are on track to get to 2,000 stores by Dec 2025. We also added 0.4 million sq ft of warehousing space and now operate over 5.6 million sq ft of warehousing space across the country," said Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa.
Blinkit's revenue surges 154%:
The firm reported quick commerce revenue at Rs 2,400 crore for Q1 FY26, marking a surge of nearly 154 percent YoY from Rs 942 crore in Q1 FY25. Revenue generated from food delivery segment rose over 16 percent on-year to Rs 2,261 crore.
Zomato's adjusted EBITDA margin rises on-year:
Eternal said that its adjusted EBITDA margin for Zomato stood at 5 percent in Q1 FY26, higher than the 3.9 percent reported in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year.
Eternal noted that its food delivery margins have declined sequentially. "I think the YoY growth is likely to bottom out now as we recover from the demand slowdown we started seeing in late 2024. For FY26, it looks unlikely that the business will deliver a 20%+ NOV growth but we should be north of 15% and hopefully trending towards 20% YoY growth in FY27," said Deepinder Goyal.
Management on new entrants in food delivery segment:
When asked about the possible disruption from the entry of new players in the food delivery segments, Goyal said that it is inevitable. "New ideas, new entrants and disruption are all inevitable. I think it also makes our business stronger as long as we are able to learn, adapt and out-innovate potential competition. At this point, we do not see any innovation in the space which makes us believe that this business is under any obvious threat," he said.
This comes amid buzz over cab-hailing platform Rapido's potential entry into the food delivery segment.
Eternal announces incorporation of Blinkit Foods:
Eternal's board has approved the incorporation of its wholly-owned subsidiary Blinkit Foods with a proposed share capital of Rs 10 lakh. "Blinkit Foods is proposed to be incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary and would inter-alia engage in the business of providing food services (including innovation, preparation, sourcing, sale and delivery of food to customers)," the company said.
District generating higher average revenue per order than Zomato, Blinkit:
Zomato CFO Akshant Goyal said that the average revenue per order generated by its going out business (District) is more than Rs 160, which is meaningfully higher than our food delivery (Zomato) and quick commerce (Blinkit) businesses. "If we execute well, this business has the potential to scale to $3 billion in annual topline (NOV) with $150m of Adjusted EBITDA sometime over the next five years," he added.
Deepinder Goyal meanwhile said that the firm's 'Going-out' segment is now a Rs 8,000-crore annualized NOV business. This already represents nearly 20 percent of the size of Zomato and Blinkit. "In Q1FY26, we had about 2 million average monthly transacting customers transacting ~2 times a month on an average with a net AOV (NAOV) of INR 1,700+," he said.
Also read: Our LIVE blog on Q1 updates
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