The year came to close on a high note for quick commerce and food delivery platforms, as they clocked their highest-ever orders on New Year’s Eve (NYE). Executives from companies like Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, and Zepto, took to X (formerly Twitter) to share notable consumer trends and record order volumes.
“We have already crossed the total number of orders we did on NYE 2023. Happened around 5 PM today!” Albinder Dhindsa, CEO, Blinkit, said in a post on X on 31 December.
To accommodate the anticipated large (electronics/party) orders, Blinkit launched its all-electric large order fleet. Currently live in Delhi and Gurugram, the new fleet will be rolled out in other cities as well.
Similarly, rival Instamart, too, reported record order volumes, surpassing the last year's sales and previous peaks of Mother’s Day and Diwali, said Swiggy Instamart CEO Amitesh Jha.
“Categories such as snacks, party essentials, and gifting are seeing the most notable growth. In 2024, Swiggy Instamart expanded to over 42 cities, serving 68 cities currently, ensuring that no celebration—big or small—is ever out of reach," he added.
Bhubaneswar and Mangaluru emerged as Instamart’s busiest new cities on the occasion, with top orders from these regions being chocolates, chips, and soft drinks, revealed Phani Kishan, co-founder and Chief Growth Officer, Swiggy.
In fact, a user in Bhubaneswar bought protein bars worth Rs 12,000. Cities like Ludhiana, Rajkot, Pondicherry, and Kanpur also saw their surge on Instamart by 2-3x, compared to an average day.
The story was not very different for Blinkit, who also saw most of its demand come for products like chips, soft drinks, chocolates, and condoms.
Dhindsa said that Blinkit delivered as over 2.34 lakh packets of aloo bhujia, over 45,000 cans of tonic water, more than 6,000 packets of ice cubes, over 1,000 lipsticks and 762 lighters by 8 PM.
Surprisingly, an obscure favourite of customers turned out to be grapes. Dhindsa claimed that Blinkit sold seven-times the grapes it does than on a regular day. Meanwhile, Instamart shared that, for the first time ever on NYE, the firm completely sold out its stock of grapes.
Meanwhile, Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha shared that the company was selling as many as 3,345 ice cube packets per hour, up 2.62x compared to the previous year.
Other cloud kitchen players, who typically sell on Swiggy, Zomato and other platforms, said their individual businesses were on a high too. Food and beverage brand Curefoods, for instance, saw the bulk of its orders coming from Bangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai.
“Biggest order till now is a 32 pizza order. I am guessing a startup in Bangalore is celebrating NYE,” Ankit Nagori, founder and CEO, Curefoods, said on X.
Margherita pizzas, chocolate truffle cakes, and egg biryanis were the platform’s the most frequently ordered dishes. Curefoods, on Tuesday, also announced that it had entered into an agreement with the Landmark Group to acquire operations of Krispy Kreme, the popular doughnut brand, in the South and West of India.
Meanwhile, Tata-owned grocery delivery platform BigBasket, to capitalize on the growing demand, is planning to roll out its own quick food delivery service in 2025. The firm will also start medicine deliveries via Tata 1mg next year, said CEO and co-founder Hari Menon said in a post on X.
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