Zomato hits 28 million order run rate per month

Restaurant discovery and food delivery firm Zomato claimed that it achieved a 28 million monthly order run rate in December, a significant bump up from the previously disclosed 21 million run rate for October.

To be sure, order run rate is not the absolute order volume. It helps project future volume for the month and is calculated based on one week's volume (in this case, the highest week during December).

Zomato declined to share its absolute numbers. Rival Swiggycontinues to post 28 million monthly orders in absolute terms, said a person aware of the matter.

Zomato’s dine-in subscription service, Gold, now claims to have brought on board 7 lakh members and more than 6,000 restaurant partners, up from 6 lakh members and 4,000 restaurants in October. As of December, Zomato's reward programme, Piggybank, had 1.5 lakh subscribers, it said.

Online food delivery was the most cash-guzzling segment in 2018 with both major players — Swiggy and Zomato — raising capital across multiple financing rounds. The cash infusion led to the segment becoming hyper-competitive, as companies doled out offers and discounts to garner market share.

The two companies are losing $30-40 million each monthly, industry sources estimate. Other than these, Ola's Foodpanda and UberEats are the others vying for the consumer spending on food.

According to analysts tracking the space, the food tech industry witnessed 20% growth in December over November. Overall, the players clocked 2.1 million daily orders in December, up from 1.75 million the previous month.

As reported by ET earlier in the week, Zomato has held talks with existing and new investors to pick up $500 million to $1 billion, on the back of a $1 billion funding announced by Swiggy last month.

Zomato ended the fiscal year through March 2018 with 40% growth in revenue at Rs 466 crore. The firm also cut its corners, squeezing losses by almost 73% to Rs 106 crore, as compared to Rs 390 crore in fiscal 2017, according to financial documents filed with the Registrar of Companies. Swiggy registered a more-than-threefold surge in revenue in FY18 to Rs 442 crore and posted a loss of Rs 397 crore.

In the past year, both Swiggy and Zomato have also started a slew of new initiatives to go beyond food delivery.

Source:-https://retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/food-entertainment/food-services/zomato-hits-28-million-order-run-rate-per-month/67392789