“I think the growth of quick commerce has been a surprise for us as well. We didn’t think it would grow this much,” said Goyal at the ET Startup Awards event.
Zomato’s quick commerce division Blinkit registered Rs 942 crore in revenue during the first quarter of FY25, a significant rise from Rs 384 crore in the same period last year. Blinkit also reported a gross order value (GOV) of Rs 4,923 crore, up 130% year-on-year (YoY) in the April-June quarter.
“Blinkit is not really eating into the kiranas at all. It is not even affecting companies like Dmart. I think we’re more or less eating into the Amazons and the Flipkarts, the ecommerce sector, as well as the modern retail in the larger cities,” Goyal added.
Quick commerce platforms are increasingly functioning like horizontal online marketplaces, offering a broader product range and seeing higher sales. Key players in the sector include Mumbai-based Zepto and Swiggy’s Instamart, while Walmart-owned Flipkart has also joined the quick commerce competition with its service, Minutes.
In its quarterly report, Blinkit said that it was not taking market share away from small mom-and-pop kirana stores or value-focused large-format retailers such as Dmart. Albinder Dhindsa, chief executive of Blinkit, had attributed this growth primarily to increased consumption and a shift in market share from next-day e-commerce and mid-premium modern retail in major cities.
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“The value-focused items available in these formats are hard to replicate in our business, especially in categories like staples, where price sensitivity is higher and we don’t have the ability to sell open stock-keeping units that brick and mortar can,” the report added.Blinkit is looking to take its total dark store count to 2,000 by the end of 2026.
According to Bofa Securities, India’s quick commerce market is expected to grow to nearly $22 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) by 2027 from around $2.8 billion in 2023.