Swiggy CEO Sriharsha Majety sees telecom parallels in qcomm frenzy, says strategic clarity is key

Swiggy founder Sriharsha Majety said companies that find strategic clarity early are more likely to survive aggressive spending cycles, drawing parallels between quick commerce’s current investment frenzy and sectors such as telecom and modern trade, where only a few players eventually endured.

“Honestly, we do not know yet how many players will be on the other side of all of this spending and overall category growth,” Majety said during Swiggy’s earnings call. “But if anything, we’ve learned from multiple categories like modern trade or telecom that whoever got clarity earlier is the one that is still standing today.”

Responding to a question on whether Swiggy will give up market share to prioritise growth, Majety said the company was balancing growth and profitability.

“If fighting for short-term relevance is spending in places that will hurt us later, I think that will compromise our long-term relevance. It’s a balancing act, but I don’t think there’s any commitment to go and lose market share,” he said. “I think it’s important to build a more durable business… but as we mentioned, even more growth will come from executing the clarity of positioning that we’ve been talking about.”

ETtech

His comments come at a time when Swiggy, which posted its quarterly results on Friday, reported a sequential contraction in its quick commerce gross order value (GOV) for the first time ever. Quick commerce has been a key growth driver for the company over the past few years, and now contributes over 16% to its overall revenue.