According to the investment firm Jefferies’ research note, Zomato is going to become more aggressive in the coming months in an effort to drive growth. It illustrated that Zomato’s rival Swiggy might drop its aggressive stance in the food delivery market in order to reduce its losses.
“With aggression continuing from Swiggy on discounting and its flagship programme, Swiggy One, Zomato may come up with Pro membership in some form. “We already noticed Zomato offering free or subsidized delivery (on future deliveries against current orders) recently, signalling this trend,” Jefferies said.
Swiggy One is a membership programme that offers discounts and privileges. Zomato Pro was similar, but the company had discontinued it. Jefferies said Zomato had a market share of 55%, the highest ever share for the food delivery platform, despite aggression from Swiggy and the discontinuation of Pro.
The gross merchandise value of Swiggy Instamart, it said, was $257 million during the first half of this year. Zomato’s equivalent service, Blinkit, had a gross merchandise value of around $270 million for the same time period. It said Swiggy’s losses for the first half of this financial year are steeper at $315 million, compared to Zomato’s standalone loss of $50 million and Blinkit’s loss of $120 million.