Softbank and Zomato-backed online grocery delivery service Grofers, which just became a unicorn, plans to reduce the delivery time for groceries from 15 to 10 minutes as it expands its services to 10 cities in India.
"Today, we launched our 10th city with the promise to deliver groceries within minutes to your doorstep. While our average delivery times are still hovering around the 15 minute mark, our eventual vision is to be below 10 minutes for every customer in India," Albinder Dhindsa, co-founder and chief executive officer said in the company's blog.
"As we sign up more partners and keep building out our network, we are confident we will be under 10 minutes for the majority of the customers within the next 45 days," he added.
Grofers is offering customers 7,000 items of daily essentials in Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Jaipur, Ghaziabad, Noida and Lucknow.
Grofers just raised a $100 million round from online food delivery firm Zomato and also became a unicorn with a valuation exceeding a little more than a billion dollars.
Last month, Grofers claimed it made 7,000, 15-minute deliveries in a single day.
Development comes days after Moneycontrol reported that Swiggy has expanded its Instamart grocery delivery service to five more cities , promising deliveries in 15-30 minutes.
Swiggy, which was present only in Bengaluru and Gurugram since almost a year of its launch, has now expanded Instamart also to Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Noida.
As per a recent survey by Reedseer, quick commerce is expected to grow 10-15-fold in the next five years to become a $5 billion opportunity by 2025.
Also read: Express grocery delivery: How far will it go this time?
Other companies to have entered this space include names like BigBasket and Zomato.
BigBasket is said to be ramping up its express delivery segment after Tata Sons acquired a majority stake in the online grocery seller.
Publicly listed Zomato, too, has launched grocery delivery on its app and is offering a delivery time of 30-45 minutes.
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