Food and grocery delivery company Swiggy has shut down Genie, its hyperlocal delivery business, that competed with Uber Package, Porter and other players, which were filling in a gap that Dunzo left behind, Moneycontrol has learnt.
While the service had gone offline and was unavailable across major cities, the company has decided to close down the business unit as it focuses on core offerings such as food delivery and ups the ante on Instamart, its quick commerce offering, to compete more closely with Blinkit, Zepto and the others.
Swiggy did not immediately respond to a request for comments. Manoj Muthu Kumar, Vice President at Swiggy was leading Genie as part of his work but will now focus on other verticals.
To be sure, Swiggy Genie was not a core offering for the company – it was an ancillary business that generated some additional revenue.
However, revenues from Genie, which was live in over 60 cities, were not encouraging enough for the food delivery company to keep building the vertical. It would rather scale food delivery and gain market share in quick commerce, where the battle is only intensifying.
Swiggy Genie, launched around April 2020, is the latest to fold after Dunzo, the company credited for creating the hyperlocal delivery category, scaled down massively. The two companies reducing focus on this segment gave others such as Uber (through Package), Rapido and Porter the opportunity to scale the offering and tap more consumers.
Earlier in the month, news portal Inc42 had published that Swiggy Genie was suspended but the company has decided to shutter the vertical since then, Moneycontrol has learnt.
The decision comes at a time when quick commerce has become the most important vertical for companies such as Zomato and Swiggy, especially because newer rivals like Zepto are getting more aggressive with their strategies.
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