Swiggy Instamart, the quick commerce arm of Swiggy, added a total of 96 dark stores during the October-December period, the company said while announcing its quarterly results on February 5. While, on average, that translates to over one new Swiggy dark store everyday, the pace of growth was slower when compared with rival Blinkit.
In Q3FY25, Zomato's quick commerce arm, Blinkit, added a total of 216 dark stores which translates to an average of 2.4 dark stores each day, outpacing Swiggy's 1.06 average dark store addition every day during the quarter.
Overall, while Swiggy had a total of 705 dark stores at the end of Q3FY25, Blinkit had 1,007 dark stores at the end of the same period, as per regulatory filings.
Similarly, Blinkit at Rs 1,399 crore in revenues was larger than Swiggy which clocked Rs 577 crore in revenues during Q3FY25.
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However, while announcing its Q2FY25 results, Swiggy said that it is targeting to have 1,000 dark stores by March 2025, a move that will bring it closer to Blinkit. Both Swiggy and Blinkit compete with Walmart's Flipkart Minutes, Zepto, Tata's BigBasket and more.
Swiggy's close rival Zepto has also expressed plans to be have 1,200 dark stores by March 2025, up from around 750 currently.
All major players are advancing plans and going aggressive on dark store expansion as they look to have an edge over their peers and grab a larger market share. In fact, Blinkit advanced its goal of having 2,000 dark stores by one year and now is chasing that target by December 2025 instead of 2026.
Others like Swiggy are investing in their quick commerce business to scale up operations.
"The secular expansion in Food delivery margins and cashflow generation is balanced by growth investments being made in Quick-commerce including darkstores expansion and marketing, amidst high competitive intensity in the near-term," said Sriharsha Majety, MD & Group CEO, Swiggy.
After adding a total of 86 dark stores from April to September, Swiggy has already gone aggressive by adding 96 stores from October to December. Now, the company is further upping the ante.
Swiggy added a total of 86 stores in just January 2025 as it aims to narrow the gap with rivals.
It's not just Swiggy, even Blinkit is facing the heat from Zepto, Flipkart Minutes, BigBasket and more.
"It’s still early days…but his customer base contributes to about one third of our gross order value (GOV). They have been with us for more than two years now and their retention has actually increased…despite perhaps this quarter being the most competitive that we've seen in the last 2-3 years,” Blinkit CEO Albinder Singh Dhindsa had told analysts while discussing the company’s quarterly results in January.
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