KEY HIGHLIGHTS
● Quick commerce business Blinkit turns Adjusted EBITDA positive in March 2024
KEY TAKEAWAYS
● Year-on-year topline growth accelerated to 61% and continues to trend above the stated outlook of 40%+;Growth driven by robust growth in both food delivery and quick commerce
● Bottomline continues to expand and grow with Adjusted EBITDA at INR 194 crore. Margin expansion continues in both food delivery and quick commerce. Quick commerce business gets to Adjusted EBITDA breakeven milestone for the month of March 2024
● Rapid store expansion underway in quick commerce business. Aiming for 1,000 stores by March 20 25
On Shareholder value creation:
● “We could not have imagined the current state of all four of our businesses – food delivery, Blinkit, Going-out and Hyperpure. I think the team has executed phenomenally well over the last couple of years, and continues to stay (more or less) focused with their ears to the ground. Our journey in the last two years has, in so many ways, increased the expectations our stakeholders have from us and we will try our best to live up to them“ – Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato
On Blinkit’s growth vectors:
● “One of the key vectors for growth for us right now is store expansion. In Q4FY24, we added 75 net new stores taking our total store count to 526. In the current quarter (Q1FY25), we expect to add another 100 stores. At this point, we are aiming to get to 1,000 stores by the end of FY25 .” – Albinder Dhindsa, Founder & CEO, Blinkit
On profitability
● “On the profitability front, consolidated Adjusted EBITDA was INR 194 crore and improved by INR 369 crore as compared to the same quarter last year. Quick commerce business turned Adjusted EBITDA profitable in the month of March and Hyperpure losses also reduced meaningfully.” – Akshant Goyal, CFO, Zomato
On ESG
● “Our progress on the ESG front last year resulted in our ESG rating improving from ‘medium risk’ to ‘low risk’ by one of the leading global agencies – Sustainalytics. We are proud to share that we now have the best ESG rating amongst major global food delivery companies across the world.We hope to continue to improve this rating with progress on our ambitious Net Zero goal to achieve net zero emissions across our food delivery value chain by 2033.” –Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato
Quick commerce (Blinkit)
Quick commerce GOV grew 97% YoY
Growth driven by store expansion:
○ 75 net new stores added in Q4FY24, taking the total store count to 526. This is more than the number of stores added in the three preceding quarters cumulatively.
○ 100 more stores expected to be added in the current quarter (Q1FY25); Aiming to get to 1,000 store by the end of FY25
Profitability
○ Blinkit turns Adjusted EBITDA positive in the month of March 2024
○ In steady state, 4-5% Adjusted EBITDA margin (as a % of GOV) expected in this business.
“In addition to scaling up the existing store network and use cases, we will be adding more use cases so the Blinkit platform is even more useful in the everyday lives of our customers. We plan to stick to making our service even more reliable and loved for our customers. And just like today, we will strive to maintain an edge over competition for the quality and innovation that we stand for.” – Albinder Dhindsa, Founder & CEO, Blinkit
ESG
Progress on the ESG front last year resulted in ESG rating improving from ‘medium risk’ to ‘low risk’ by one of the leading global agencies – Sustainalytics.
Zomato now has the best ESG rating amongst major global food delivery companies across the world.
20,000+ delivery partners across cities trained to perform first-aid and CPR in case of any on-road casualties as part of the ‘first-responder training program’ launched last quarter
Delivery partners are voluntarily registering for this training program as they understand the importance of timely first-aid which can make all the difference in saving a life
Zomato has been building a proprietary network of 650+ on-ground weather stations (largest private infrastructure of this kind in the country in our view) that provides precise and real-time data on key weather parameters such as temperature, wind speed, rainfall, etc. This network was created by Zomato to help in making the right business decisions and serve customers better. As a Zomato Giveback, this data is now freely accessible to anyone who wishes to leverage it, through an API available on weatherunion.com.
“We hope to continue to maintain this rating with progress on our ambitious Net Zero goal to achieve net zero emissions across our food delivery value chain by 2033.” – Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato
Hyperpure
Revenue grew by 99% YoY | Losses reduced meaningfully
Going-Out
GOV grew 207% YoY
On the proposal to create a new ESOP pool
Proposal to create an additional ESOP pool of 2% of our outstanding share capital on a fully diluted basis, subject to shareholders’ approval
“ESOPs are important to help build a culture of long-term thinking and innovation and create a ‘founder mindset’ amongst senior employees, which ultimately drives the right outcomes for long term shareholder value creation. Also, in people-dependent businesses like ours, where great execution and constant innovation are the only determinants of survival, ESOPs are a great way to drive the high-performance culture that we thrive on.” – Akshant Goyal, CFO, Zomato
On way forward
“Our internal name for our organisation (Zomato + Blinkit + Hyperpure + Going-Out) is called Eternal. But, Eternal can never be the state of an organisation, because, the moment you think that an organisation is going to last forever, that’s the day it starts dying.” – Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato
On the organization
“I believe the key to building an organisation which lasts is to not aim for size (and let it be a by product), but to aim for survival. As Simon Sinek said in his book “The Infinite Game” – all you should strive for is to stay in the game, and you have to stay in the game for long enough to win”. – Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato
On growth in food delivery
“I think customers value the convenience and predictability layer Zomato has built on top of the services offered by restaurants, which is why the growth of Zomato is a tad bit higher than that of the restaurant industry.” – Deepinder Goyal, Founder & CEO, Zomato
On Blinkit’s growth
“Our investments (intellectual and financial) in the business are over-indexed to making our service more and more reliable. Reliability means a) availability of products at all times and b) quick and predictable delivery times. We believe that a business built on the back of great service quality is much tougher (and hence more defensible) than just offering lower prices .” – Albinder Dhindsa, Founder & CEO, Blinkit
On store expansion
“While we have a presence in 26 cities, the focus from an expansion standpoint is the top eight cities in India. The job for us over the next few quarters is to get Bengaluru and other large cities like Mumbai and Hyderabad to the penetration of Delhi NCR, both in terms of store footprint and GOV. This alone will lead to ~4x increase in our GOV.” – Albinder Dhindsa, Founder & CEO, Blinkit
On success witnessed across cities
“We believe that a business built on the back of great service quality is much tougher (and hence more defensible) than just offering lower prices. In March 2024, our average delivery time was 12.5 minutes. Besides delivering quickly, ~75% of our orders were delivered within two minutes of the promised time we showed to our customers and our accuracy on fulfilling items to customers was 99%+. This meant our service was fast, reliable and stood up to the promise we made to our customers.” – Albinder Dhindsa, Founder & CEO, Blinkit