Grofers expands operations to 27 cities
SoftBank-backed Grofers has expanded its services to 27 cities in the country, including Vadodara, Meerut, Rohtak, Panipat, Agra, and Durgapur.
SoftBank-backed Grofers on Tuesday said it has expanded its services to 27 cities in the country, including Vadodara, Meerut, Rohtak, Panipat, Agra, and Durgapur.
Grofers, which was launched in 2014 by Albinder Dhindsa and Saurabh Kumar, previously had presence in 14 Indian cities.
Speaking on the move in a statement from the company, Co-founder and CEO Albinder said,
“With this expansion, we plan to reach out to consumers in non-metro cities and introduce them to the world of value-for-money groceries. Increased smartphone penetration has already set the path for digital adoption and we are hopeful that we would be able to dominate this space, just like we have done in our existing markets.”
Albinder Dhindsa, Co-Founder and CEO of Grofers
Over the last two years, Grofers has seen its annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) grow to $700 million (about Rs 4,900 crore), the statement said.
“Focussed on the price-sensitive Indian consumers, who are primarily driven by savings, the company believes this expansion will help Grofers to deepen the penetration of its wide portfolio of own brands,” it added.
Close to 90 per cent of Grofers' users are already using the company's private label brands (G-brands), the statement said.
Earlier this month, documents filed with the Corporate Affairs Ministry and sourced by business intelligence platform Tofler revealed that the company had posted a net loss of Rs 258.3 crore for the year ended March 2018.
Grofers, which competes with the likes of BigBasket as well as grocery verticals of ecommerce majors such as Flipkart and Amazon, saw its total income grow by over 56 percent to Rs 83.62 crore in FY19 from Rs 53.47 crore in the previous financial year.
When contacted, Albinder said that Grofers' GMV had grown by 300 percent to Rs 2,500 crore in FY19 and the company was on track to double it to Rs 5,000 crore in FY20. He added,
“We are now the largest grocery ecommerce company in India, and are preparing to bring the next 100 million customers online by penetrating into hitherto untapped socio-economic segments.”
Grofers' numbers indicated that the revenue earned was through retail margin / commission from brands and sellers.
(Disclaimer: Additional background information has been added to this PTI copy for context)
(Edited by Athirupa Geetha Manichandar)
