Blinkit Q2: Revenue more than doubles to Rs 1,156 crore

Blinkit Q2: Revenue more than doubles to Rs 1,156 crore, near break-even

Blinkit, the quick commerce arm of Zomato, saw its revenue more than double to Rs 1,156 crore in Q2FY25 from Rs 505 crore in Q2FY24, stock exchange filings showed on October 22.

The company’s adjusted EBITDA stood at a negative Rs 8 crore in the three months ended September, an improvement from negative Rs 125 crore incurred in the corresponding period last year, as the industry matures and more customers adopt rapid delivery platforms for their purchases.

The company’s gross order value (GOV) also jumped to Rs 6,132 crore in the quarter, up from Rs 2,760 crore in the same period last year. On an annualised basis, Blinkit, the market leader, saw its GOV near $3 billion at Rs 24,528 crore. The latest numbers for Swiggy Instamart, also among the top players in the space, were not publicly available. However, at the end of FY24, it had a GOV of $1 billion when Blinkit had a GOV of $1.6 billion.

Zepto, a rival in industry, had earlier said it has a GOV of $1.5 billion.

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GOV is the total value of goods sold on a platform or marketplace over a period of time before deducting line items such as fees, discounts, or returns. Revenue, on the other hand, is the amount of money a business earns from sales after accounting for costs like fees, discounts, and/or returns.

Blinkit’s store count stood at 791 at the end of the September quarter, which is an increase of 152 stores in three months. During the same period last year, the company had 411 stores. Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, Blinkit, Tata’s BigBasket and Flipkart Minutes are all adding dark stores at a rapid pace as they look to be one up against rivals.

“While most of our stores today are profitable with expanding margins, we are not seeing margin expansion at aggregate level at this moment because of the investments we are making towards scaling our infrastructure. This includes not just the stores that we are adding, but also the back-end large warehouses. For example, in Q2FY25, we added 152 net new stores and 7 warehouses. Since new stores and warehouses take a few months to ramp-up, they end up being margin dilutive in the short-term,” Zomato’s CFO Akshant Goyal said in a letter to shareholders.

Goyal's comments come at a time when the business' contribution as a percentage of GOV fell slightly from 4 percent to 3.8 percent. The company's management said the drop was because it was opening more stores than it was earlier.

Blinkit had an average order value (AOV) of Rs 660 in the quarter, highest among the top three players in the industry. This is an increase from Rs 607 during the same period last year.

On a quarterly basis, Blinkit's AOV went up from Rs 625. The company also saw the average monthly transacting users (MTUs) jump from 4.7 million in Q2FY24 to 8.9 million in Q2FY25.