A Rs 99 bet: India’s QSRs rethink the value game

For a customer staring at a Rs 300-plus fast-food bill, the difference between “maybe” and “let’s order” can sometimes be a Rs 99 price tag.

That is the price point India’s quick-service restaurants (QSRs) are increasingly chasing to make customers more willing to order.

But is a Rs 99 price tag enough to win back a customer who has been staying away?


After a period of subdued demand, India’s food and restaurant businesses are changing their pitch.

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KFC is using a Rs 99 meal to draw in first-time customers. McDonald’s is leaning harder on value meals. Burger King is building a ladder from Rs 79-Rs 99 offers to its core burgers and premium products. Zomato is testing fresh-food vending pods inside offices. And QSR chains are pushing coffee and beverages to create reasons to visit outside lunch and dinner.

The common thread is not simply cheaper food, but reducing customers’ hesitation to order.

But whether that customer’s “yes” lasts is another question.

“The current recovery appears to be more volume/traffic-led than purely promotion-led, although value pricing has clearly acted as an important catalyst for customer recruitment,” said Chetan Mahadik, AVP - Consumer Discretionary, Systematix Group. The bigger test, he said, is whether transaction growth holds over the next few quarters or proves to be a promotion-led bounce.

The Rs 99 comeback

The timing matters. India’s food-services market is around $90 billion and Redseer expects it to reach about $150 billion by 2030. Organised food services are growing at 17-18% annually, compared with 3-4% for the unorganised segment.

The June quarter of FY27, showed signs of improvement across several large QSR operators. Sapphire Foods’ KFC India business reported 5% same-store sales growth (based on sales at existing stores, excluding the impact of new outlets), while Westlife Foodworld, which operates McDonald’s in western and southern India, logged a 4.3% increase. Burger King India reported 12.6% growth.

For KFC, the Rs 99 Chicken Krisper Meal is being positioned as more than a bargain. Sapphire has said it is aimed at bringing new consumers into the brand, particularly people who know KFC but have not been willing to try it.

“There are people who are aware of the brand, but they still don't come in because of misplaced thoughts in their head about the brand,” Vijay Jain, Executive Director & CFO at Sapphire Foods, had said during an earnings call. “I think this -- it's a combination of behavior changing advertising along with the core meal at INR 99.”

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Sapphire management said the Rs 99 Chicken Krisper Burger Meal, backed by advertising targeting non-users, was helping attract new consumers to KFC.

McDonald’s is pursuing a similar shift. Westlife has been leaning on its value platform to make the brand more accessible while continuing to push larger meals, McCafe and other parts of its menu.

Westlife Foodworld CEO Akshay Jatia said in the last earnings call that the everyday value meal “continues to see strong traction and remains a key driver of dine-in footfalls”.

The company said its Q1 growth was led by more people walking into McDonald’s more often, with guest counts growing in double digits. It also said the value platform was helping attract consumers and drive repeat visits, while the everyday-value proposition was being built to become “trusted, predictable and habit forming”.

Westlife management said it was “acquiring more consumers, driving repeat visits” and strengthening McDonald’s relevance across everyday consumption occasions.

The broader strategy is that a Rs 99 meal can get a customer through the door. Once there, the business has an opportunity to sell that customer a coffee, dessert or a larger meal, and potentially bring the customer back again.

The customer has more reasons to say ‘no’

Customers today have more choices: from regional food brands and newer cafes to delivery platforms and quick-commerce.

And increasingly, they do not have to walk into a store at all.

Redseer estimates online food delivery’s share of India’s food-services market has risen from 4% in FY21 to 11% in FY26 and could reach 18% by FY31. Online food services are growing at 20-22% annually, against 8-10% for offline food services. Monthly transacting food-delivery users have risen from around 1 crore to 3 crore over the same period.

That changes what a QSR has to compete on. Price gets the customer to click. Convenience gets the order through. Product and experience have to give the customer a reason to return.

Domino’s shows what that online shift looks like on the ground. Jubilant FoodWorks, which operates Domino’s in India, reported 2.5% like-for-like growth (year-on-year sales growth at comparable, existing stores) in the June quarter, while order growth was 6.5%. Delivery revenue rose 12.1%, with delivery accounting for 76.1% of its India business.

In a conference call for analysts and investors after the Q1 earnings, Jubilant CEO Sameer Khetarpal said Domino’s had to respond after aggregators lowered minimum order values to Rs 99, adding that the company’s own app “continues to grow” and remains the “predominant channel for growth”. But he said the move to Rs 99 was a correction that “comes at a lower average order value”, as Domino’s had initially resisted the change because it hurts the economics.

The company is also trying to revive dine-in and takeaway. Khetarpal said the biggest drop had been in solo occasions below Rs 250, as delivery became cheaper, and that Domino’s was developing all-day, value-focused products specifically for that customer.

The company is also using store-only offers and differentiated menus to give customers a reason to leave home, effectively making the restaurant itself part of the value proposition again.

Pizza Hut’s recovery, meanwhile, remains uneven. Sapphire Foods’ Pizza Hut India business reported 1% same-store sales growth, its first positive quarter after five quarters of decline. Devyani International’s Pizza Hut stores, meanwhile, were still down 2.2%, though that improved from a 3.7% decline in the previous quarter.

The two numbers are reported separately because Pizza Hut, in India, has two major franchise operators — Sapphire Foods and Devyani International — operating different parts of the network.

Devyani and Sapphire are in the process of merging, with Devyani saying the merger remains on track for completion by the end of FY27.

Devyani has been right-sizing its Pizza Hut network and its management said its strategy was a “back-to-basics” approach focused on product, ingredients and innovation. Its Pizza Hut network stood at 626 stores, with average daily sales of about Rs 32,400.

Devyani President and Group CEO Manish Dawar, at the Q1 earnings call, said Pizza Hut’s earlier structure — involving Devyani, Sapphire and Yum! Brands — had created issues around decision-making and innovation. “Pizza Hut is all about going back to basics,” he said, adding that the company was working on the product, ingredients and new product ideas ahead of the merger.

It’s not just about food anymore

The next battleground may be what comes with the meal — or what replaces it.

Coffee and beverages are becoming a bigger focus for India’s QSR chains. McDonald’s, Domino’s and Burger King are expanding their beverage propositions, while Devyani is preparing to test Kwench, a beverage-focused sub-brand, in India.

Devyani’s management said Kwench is already being discussed for India, with product and capex work largely done and a test launch being planned.

The appeal is straightforward: a coffee or a new drink can create a reason for a visit at 4 pm, when a full meal may not be needed, while also adding to the value of an existing order.

The other shift is happening outside restaurants. Zomato is piloting fresh-food vending pods at select corporate offices in Gurugram, putting meals closer to office workers instead of relying entirely on a delivery rider.

The strategy is increasingly about more occasions, not just more meals: a cheap lunch when money is tight, coffee when there is no need for a full meal, and ready food when the customer does not want to leave the office.

Rs 99 is only the beginning

There is, however, a catch.

Value pricing can bring traffic back, but it can also pull down the average bill. The economics work only if the extra transactions more than compensate for the lower ticket size.

“Value offerings appear to be bringing incremental customers and improving footfalls, although some moderation in average ticket size is inevitable as consumers move towards lower-priced meals. The key is whether incremental transactions more than offset ticket-size dilution, and the current operating trends suggest that this is happening for some players,” Mahadik said.

That is why the next phase of the QSR playbook is unlikely to be about simply making food cheaper. It is about what happens after the first Rs 99 purchase — getting the customer to add a drink, return for coffee, order through an app, try a higher-priced product or simply come back more often.

“We believe value pricing is likely to remain an important part of the QSR proposition, but sustainable growth will depend on targeted value offerings rather than broad-based discounting,” Mahadik said.