Zomato looking to take quick commerce service Blinkit to smaller cities

Zomato-owned quick commerce company Blinkit aims to hit 2,000 dark stores by the end of 2026 from 639 at the end of the June quarter

A few weeks after it announced plans to more than treble Blinkit’s dark store count by 2026, Zomato said on August 28 that it is looking to expand its quick-commerce business to smaller cities.

“We are in 26 cities today. We're seeing it grow in smaller cities. We want to expand and grow in more cities. There is also a lot of room for growth in large cities,” Zomato chief financial officer Akshant Goyal said at the company’s annual general meeting.

Blinkit aims to hit 2,000 dark stores by the end of 2026 from 639 at the end of the June quarter.

Its domination of the quick commerce segment is quite a turnaround from the time when the company hurtled from one crisis to the other before it was acquired by Zomato.

Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, Tata BigBasket are the other platforms in the space.

Zomato acquired Blinkit for $568 million in 2022. Its improved performance has pushed Blinkit’s implied valuation to a staggering $13 billion, according to Goldman Sachs analysts. Year-on-year, the valuation grew more than six times.

At the AGM, the Zomato management also addressed shareholder concerns about managing three different apps — the eponymous food delivery app, Blinkit and forthcoming app called District for “going-out” business.

“We have three consumer-facing apps now. We will at this point want to keep the three apps separate. We have seen the benefit of it with Zomato and Blinkit. Our strategy will remain building super brands in the country,” the Zomato CFO said.

“We will make sure we take advantage of the large customer base and reduce the CAC (customer acquisition cost) for smaller businesses.”

The company completed the acquisition of Paytm's entertainment ticketing business for Rs 2,048 crore to strengthen its "going-out" segment, the two companies have told exchanges.

Paytm's entertainment ticketing business covers movies, sports, and events (live performances).

As part of the agreement, Zomato has fully acquired Orbgen Technologies Pvt Ltd (OTPL), which is into movie ticketing, for Rs 1,264.6 crore and Wasteland Entertainment Pvt Ltd, which sells events tickets, for Rs 783.8 crore.