Updated: October 06, 2018, 00:15 IST

Restaurant discovery and food delivery firm Zomato claims to have hit the 21 million monthly order
run rate in India in September implying that the firm saw its highest weekly order volume during the
month touch 700,000 orders each day of the week.

With this, Zomato claims it is the market leader in the food delivery space in India.

“At the beginning of 2018, we were at 3.5 million orders a month. With 21 million orders per month,
as far as we know, we are now the market leader in the food ordering space in India,” wrote Zomato
CEO, Deepinder Goyal in a blog post on Friday. 

Interestingly, in a blog post in August 2017, Zomato claimed it had reached the 3 million monthly
order volume mark.

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

Industry sources, however, peg Zomato’s absolute order volumes at over 14 million as of September.
Swiggy clocks over 20 million monthly orders in absolute terms as of September, the persons cited
above said. 

“We were present in 15 cities in India, at the onset of this year; our food delivery business is now
active in 38 cities in India. And at the pace we are going, it’s only a matter of time before we launch
our food delivery business in 100 cities,” wrote Goyal in the blog post. 

While on absolute volumes, Zomato may be trailing Swiggy, its growth in the online ordering
business has been rather strong with the vertical becoming the largest for the Gurgaon-based firm,
now forming 65% of its overall revenues from the 35% it formed as of January, Goyal wrote. 

About 86% of the orders are now fulfilled by Zomato’s own logistics across its fleet of 74,000 delivery
agents as compared to a 26% self-fulfilled delivery rate as of January. 

Swiggy has a fleet network of over 90,000 delivery agents across India with all deliveries self-fulfilled
for the firm.

Zomato ended FY18 with a 40% growth in revenues at Rs 466 crore even as losses shrunk by almost
73% at Rs 106 crore as compared to Rs 390 crore last year, ET had reported in September. 

FY19 is, however, expected to see the firm’s losses and expenses rise tremendously as the food tech
industry is engaged in a discount-driven battle between Swiggy, Zomato, UberEats and Foodpanda to
grab larger mind shares and wallet shares of users.

For Zomato, the growth in its food delivery business is costing the Ant Financial backed firm a
monthly cash burn of over $20 million while rival Swiggy is burning $16-18 million to stay ahead of
the race, ET had reported in July. 
For Zomato which has been discounting heavily across markets in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad as
also newer cities it is launching in, revenues from its allied businesses such as subscription program
Gold and its advertising business have helped cap a portion of the monthly cash burn. 

The deep discounting has led to a spike in the number of new users being added on the platform
monthly to 2.4 million (24,00,000) in September from 0.19 million (1,97,000) in January.

Zomato Gold is currently available across over 4000 restaurants and has about 500,000 members so
far, the firm said.

Zomato claims its gross merchandise volume on an annualised (projected run rate) basis hit $1
billion in September growing from $210 million as of January with the firm having increased the
number of restaurants on its platform by almost 93% over the last 9 months to 54,000. About 7,500
of these restaurants are exclusive to Zomato.

However, it is important to note that the value of the orders across platforms is significantly
different with industry sources pegging Swiggy’s average order value at about Rs 280-300 while that
of Zomato is at about Rs 190-200. 

That said, Zomato claims its order value is higher at around Rs 320 due to “a premium set of users
owing to our reviews business and Zomato Gold, which keeps our average order value higher than
the competition,” a spokesperson for the firm said.

The average order value for UberEats and Foodpanda is pegged at between Rs 50-70, as per sources
mentioned above. UberEats clocks about 3.5-4 million orders per month while FoodPanda clocks 1-
1.5 million monthly orders as of August.

Indian online food ordering market set to grow at 16.2%, to touch $17.02 billion by 2023
According to the study, 95 per cent of the respondents surveyed order food
online, owing to promotional offers and discounts, while 84 per cent
individuals said its hassle-free and time-saving
 PTI        Last Updated: March 26, 2019  | 15:55 IST

The online food ordering market in India is likely to grow at over 16 per cent annually to touch USD
17.02 billion by 2023, according to a study by business consultancy firm Market Research Future.
The study, titled 'Digital Platforms Reign in the Food Ordering Market', said the growth in online food
ordering market has been attributed to the rising number of women in working population in most
of the metro cities.
"The Indian online food ordering market is slated to grow at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate)
of 16.2 per cent at USD 17.02 billion by 2023," it said.
According to the study, 95 per cent of the respondents surveyed order food online, owing to
promotional offers and discounts, while 84 per cent individuals said its hassle-free and time-saving.
 It added that 78 per cent of the individuals order food online because its convenient. And 73 per
cent order food online because of a wide variety of cuisines on a single-click.
"Lunch is the most preferred meal to be ordered online and card payment is the most preferred
mode of payment," it added.
Bengaluru gets the highest number of online orders as compared to other cities with 20 per cent of
the market share acquired by the southern city, the report said.
It is followed by Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Hyderabad with a share of 18 per cent, 17 per cent, 15 per
cent and 12 per cent, respectively, while other cities accounted for 18 per cent of the market share.
"The rising number of logistics providers has also enabled food delivery companies to optimise their
fleet, thereby reducing delivery time. Online food delivery platforms are focused towards
acquisitions and are collaborating with logistics companies to manage delivery operations in the
dedicated region," it added.

Some more statistics –

Revenue (2019)
+24.4% yoy 
US$7,730m

Users (2019)
+17.3% yoy 
161.8m

 Revenue in the Online Food Delivery segment amounts to US$7,730m in 2019.

 Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2019-2023) of 12.8%, resulting in
a market volume of US$12,536m by 2023.
 The market's largest segment is Restaurant-to-Consumer Delivery with a market volume of
US$4,334m in 2019.
 In global comparison, most revenue is generated in China (US$40,239m in 2019).

SOME INFOGRAPHIC –