FILE PHOTO: A delivery worker of Zomato, an Indian food-delivery startup, prepares to leave to pick up an order from a restaurant in Mumbai, India, July 13, 2021. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas
February 10, 2022
BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian food delivery firm Zomato Ltd reported a smaller third-quarter loss on Thursday, helped by a one-time gain from a stake sale, while revenue jumped due to increased demand for restaurant meals.
Zomato’s dining out business, which offers customers discounts and offers when they eat out at partner restaurants, strengthened as eateries and bars reopened following a drop in COVID-19 cases during the quarter, while the company’s core food delivery business continued to grow.
“The revival of in-restaurant dining (in the third quarter) led to some green shoots in our dining-out ad-sales business,” the Gurugram-based firm said in a regulatory filing https://bit.ly/33eIov4.
Zomato also said it would increase the upper limit of its potential investments over the next two years in the quick commerce market to $400 million.
India’s quick commerce and hyperlocal delivery space has attracted investors over the past year, with both Google and Reliance Industries investing in Bengaluru-based startup Dunzo.
Zomato also invested about $225 million in the past year in delivery firm Blinkit, logistics-tech firm Shiprocket and neighbourhood business discovery app Magicpin.
Gross order value, or the total monetary value of all food delivery orders placed on Zomato’s online platform, rose 84.5% year-over-year to 55 billion rupees ($733.07 million), while orders jumped 93%.
The company’s consolidated net loss narrowed to 632 million rupees for the three months ended Dec. 31, from 3.53 billion rupees a year earlier, helped by a one-time gain of 3.16 billion rupees from the sale of its stake in Fitso, an online platform that helps people discover sporting venues.
Revenue from operations rose 82.5% to 11.12 billion rupees.
Zomato shares have lost 25% since listing in July last year amid weakness in the broader market on valuation concerns and expectations for monetary policy tightening by global central banks.
($1 = 75.0270 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Anuron Kumar Mitra in Bengaluru;Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Vinay Dwivedi)
Source: One America News Network
