‘We are creating great businesses, and there is a huge responsibility towards all our stakeholders, including investors, and customers.’
IMAGE: Managing director and group chief executive officer of Swiggy, Sriharsha Majety, (left) gives a memento to managing director and CEO of NSE Ashishkumar Chauhan ahead of the listing ceremony of its IPO in Mumbai, November 13, 2024. Photograph: Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters
At the consolidated group level, food and grocery delivery firm Swiggy expects to achieve positive adjusted Ebitda (Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) by Q3FY26 (Oct-Dec 2025), said Sriharsha Majety, managing director (MD) and group chief executive officer (CEO) of Swiggy, and Rohit Kapoor, CEO of its food marketplace.
In a video interview with Peerzada Abrar and Aryaman Gupta/Business Standard, Majety said he is expecting to see a new wave of opportunities for the quick commerce business.
How do you see food delivery and quick commerce (qcom) services evolving and having an impact on revenues?
Majety: A lot of the transformation plans that have been there are starting to show up.
Our delivery speeds are at their fastest in multiple cities. Swiggy Instamart plans to double its dark store count by March 2025 (from 523 in March 2024).
The active dark store area will grow over 2.5 times year-on-year to reach 4 million square feet by March 2025.
It will also allow us to finish our transformation. We have operated as a grocery-first business for the first few years of our journey.
But now we would see more assortment, which opens a new wave of selection.
We are also starting to crank up the innovation funnel on quick commerce.
You may have seen the recent launch of the pharmacy category as a pilot on Instamart.
Food is a more mature category for us. In the quick commerce category, there is going to be a lot of push and pull.
At the consolidated group level, we expect to achieve positive adjusted Ebitda by Q3FY26.
We continue to expand into more cities. Instamart today is present in 54 cities and we’ll continue to add cities.
Swiggy is expected to turn adjusted Ebitda-positive by Q3FY26. Do you feel pressure to turn profitable quickly, given Zomato is in the green?
Majety: The guidance we operate with is based on what we believe are the timelines for each of our businesses to come together.
With each business, we consider the right long-term view for them and how to pace ourselves.
We live in a very competitive landscape, and we will count on our ability to perform every day.
Kapoor: We don’t operate with any pressures from the outside world. That is not the mindset we hold as a management team.
We are creating great businesses, and there is a huge responsibility towards all our stakeholders, including investors, and customers… If the right move were (to achieve profitability) one quarter early, or late, we would have been able to achieve that quite comfortably, without any external pressure.
Quick commerce versus food delivery, which of them presents a bigger opportunity in the long-term?
Majety: The two businesses have different growth trajectories. Quick commerce is a large market, and it is still early days.
In terms of food delivery, we are seeing the tip of the iceberg.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
