Swiggy‘s quarterly loss nearly doubled from a year earlier as the Indian online delivery platform spent more on marketing to attract customers in a highly-competitive market, its results showed on Thursday.
Swiggy, a decade-old player and one of the market leaders in the food delivery business alongside Eternal’s Zomato, continues investing in the business through marketing, platform upgrades and loyalty programmes.
It is also pouring money into its quick-commerce arm, Instamart, as it opens more stores, strengthens logistics, and offers discounts.
The company faced challenges related to the lower availability of delivery partners due to earlier-than-expected monsoon showers in India.
Meanwhile, marketing investments remained high amid “sticky competitive intensity,” it said in a statement.
India’s quick commerce space is getting crowded with entrants like Tata-backed BigBasket and Amazon. The food delivery space is also seeing rising competition with the foray of ride-hailing platform, Rapido, in which Swiggy owns a 12% stake.
Swiggy’s total revenue surged 54% to Rs 4,961 crore ($566.2 million) in the quarter ended June 30, while its consolidated expenses jumped about 60% to Rs 6,244 crore, as sales promotions more than doubled.
Its consolidated net loss widened to Rs 1,197 crore for the quarter, from a loss of Rs 611 crore a year ago.
Swiggy expanded to 127 cities from 124 in the previous quarter, added 41 stores, and continued scaling up store sizes.
Gross order value from its food delivery segment rose about 19% to Rs 8,086 crore in the June quarter, while Instamart’s gross order value surged nearly 108% to Rs 5,655 crore.
Reuters
