Eternal’s quick commerce biz Blinkit surpasses Zomato in order value

Eternal's quick commerce subsidiary Blinkit has overtaken the company’s core food delivery business in gross order value (GOV) for the first time, a development that reflects a broader consumer shift and strategic pivot within the company.

In the quarter ended June 2025, Blinkit reported a GOV of Rs 11,821 crore, up 140% year-over-year, compared to Rs 10,769 crore from Zomato’s food delivery business. A year earlier, food delivery still accounted for the larger share of the company’s transaction volume.

The rise in Blinkit’s order volumes comes alongside aggressive store expansion and supply chain investments. Blinkit added 243 new stores in the quarter, bringing its total to 1,544 stores, and increased its overall supply chain area to 10.4 million square feet. Monthly transacting users reached 16.9 million, more than doubling over the previous year.

As the quick commerce business expands, Eternal says the operational demands are significantly more complex than food delivery or traditional retail.

“We are solving two large problems in parallel—building a retail business with a just-in-time supply chain, and an internet-and-logistics business similar to food delivery,” the company stated in an exchange filing. “Each of these is complex on its own. Addressing both simultaneously makes quick commerce more demanding operationally.”

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The company also shared its perspective on customer behaviour, suggesting that speed and service consistency are more important than price.

“Our customers tend to be value-conscious rather than price-conscious. We aim to deliver value through speed, assortment, customer support, and price—in that order,” the statement read.

According to the company, revenue per order—net of subsidies—exceeds Rs 100 even in the first month following customer acquisition and improves over time. As a result, Eternal claims that new customer cohorts become contribution-margin break-even within the first month.

“We may be performing better than some of our peers, but we don’t view that as the benchmark,” the company said. “Our standard is based on customer expectations, and we continue to work toward meeting those.”

From a financial standpoint, Blinkit’s expansion has required sizable capital expenditure. Eternal reported investing approximately Rs 1,000 crore over the past five quarters to open around 1,000 net new stores and build 2.5 million square feet of warehouse space.

“Each store requires roughly Rs 1 crore of capital expenditure, including warehousing,” said CFO Akshant Goyal. “At current productivity—Rs 7 lakh in net order value per (NOV) store per day—this results in an annual NOV of Rs 26 crore per store. That implies a capex intensity of about 4% of NOV.”

Goyal also outlined the working capital profile of the business. As a marketplace that currently does not fully own its inventory, Blinkit operates with a net working capital requirement of about 1% of NOV. In a scenario where it owns 100% of the inventory, that figure could rise to about 5%.

“If we achieve 5-6% adjusted EBITDA margins (as a percentage of NOV), our return on capital employed (ROCE) could exceed 40%,” Goyal said.

Separately, Eternal’s board has approved the incorporation of Blinkit Foods, a wholly-owned subsidiary with an initial capital of Rs 10 lakh. The new entity is expected to engage in food services, including the sourcing, preparation, innovation, sale, and delivery of food to customers.

Blinkit Foods could house a brand like Bistro. An employee of Blinkit on condition of anonymity said, "Bistro experiment has gained good traction. We have received orders to regularise the process and bring it under one umbrella. Scaling of this vertical is challenging; it's hard to keep up the quality."

While Blinkit’s GOV growth marks a turning point in Eternal’s business mix, the company has emphasised that it is still investing in foundational infrastructure and capabilities to support long-term scalability and efficiency.