Zomato vs Swiggy: Who is Winning?

The Indian online food delivery space has witnessed a massive boom in recent years. From a mere $4.82 billion revenues in 2017, it reached $27.47 billion in 2022. Notably, by 2027 it is expected to reach $71.62 billion.

The two players who dominate this growing market are Gurgaon based Zomato and Bengaluru based Swiggy.

Zomato was founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, two IIT Delhi graduates in 2008. In its earlier avatar, it was named FoodieBay and changed it to its present name Zomato in 2010.

Meanwhile, Swiggy was founded in July 2014 by Sriharsha Majety, Nandan Reddy, and Rahul Jaimini and parent company Bundl Technologies.

Now let’s try to find out about their journeys, their present financial situation, and what is the way forward for this competing duo.

Which is Bigger: Swiggy or Zomato?
 

• Financials: Swiggy’s aggressive discounting has been both a boon and a bane for the company. In FY 22, Swiggy recorded a revenue of Rs 5,704.9 crores while Zomato’s revenue for the same period stood at Rs 4,687.3 crores. However, Swiggy’s losses for FY 22 are three times higher than Zomato’s losses in the same period. In FY 22, when Zomato recorded losses of Rs 1,220.3 crores, Swiggy’s losses were Rs 3,628.9 crores.
  

(Source: Zomato Annual Report, Tofler)
 

(Source: Zomato Annual Report, Tofler)

• Number of Restaurant Partners: Zomato trumps Swiggy on this front. As of February 2022, Zomato's number of restaurant partners stood at 390,000 while Swiggy’s was less than half of that at 128,000.
   
• Monthly Active Users: Zomato’s number of monthly active users too are more than Swiggy’s. While Zomato’s monthly active users as of February 2022 stood at 32 million, Swiggy’s stood at 20 million.
   

Analyst Outlook

Jefferies: The global brokerage firm believes that Swiggy will have to discontinue its aggressive discounting strategy to halt its huge losses. However, if it doesn’t Zomato might bring back its Gold membership service to stop losing market share to its bigger rival.

Morgan Stanley: The brokerage firm remains upbeat about the overall prospects of the food delivery space in India. Within that, it believes that Zomato stands to gain more considering its improving profitability and higher market share. 

Bernstein India: Brokerage firm Bernstein believes that Swiggy is stronger than its listed peer in the grocery delivery business. However, it believes that Zomato has a higher profit visibility than Swiggy in the near future.

This is not investment advice. Investments in the securities market are subject to market risk, read all the related documents carefully before investing. Past performance is not indicative of future returns.