Zomato's Deepinder Goyal shrugs off Rapido, Swiggy's budget food bets

Eternal founder and former chief executive officer Deepinder Goyal on Wednesday brushed aside the competitive threat from Rapido and Swiggy's recent foray into budget food delivery, saying the company's business has seen only a limited impact from the low-cost offerings and arguing that the model lacks sustainable economics.

Responding to shareholder questions after the company's April-June quarter earnings, Goyal said the impact of Ownly, Rapido's budget food delivery platform, and Toing, Swiggy's offering in the segment, had been "limited" so far.

"These platforms are offering the same restaurants, similar or longer delivery times, and lower menu prices funded by lower commissions and delivery fee - making the revenue gap even more unsustainable. There's no new use case being unlocked here. The customer traction is purely price-driven, and price-driven traction without structural economics tends to resolve itself," Goyal said.


He added that Eternal had responded where necessary but was not overly concerned by the competitive moves.

"We've responded where needed and we'll adapt if something changes. But we're not spending much energy on this," Goyal said.

Eternal doubles down on Bistro

Instead, Goyal said the company is focusing on Bistro, its in-house initiative aimed at making food delivery viable in the ₹50-150 price range through supply-chain innovation rather than discounting.

"What we are spending energy on is Bistro - which is our answer to the question these platforms are pretending to solve. If you want to make food delivery work at INR 50-150 price points, you can't do it without supply chain innovation. We're rethinking kitchen operations from first principles here - designing custom equipment, workflows, and automation purpose-built for high-volume, limited-menu formats," he said.

Calling Bistro a fundamentally different operating model, Goyal added, "This isn't a restaurant. It's closer to a food manufacturing system optimised for freshness, speed, and consistency. It's a different segment, a different occasion, and a genuinely new market."

The comments come amid intensifying competition in online food delivery, with companies experimenting with lower-priced offerings to attract value-conscious consumers.

Competitive intensity high but 'predictable'

Echoing Goyal's views, Blinkit chief executive Albinder Dhindsa said Eternal remained focused on long-term investments rather than competing primarily on price.

"No - competitive intensity remains high but has become more predictable. Our focus on long-term growth vectors remains unique in the market - we're the only player simultaneously investing in assortment depth, geographic expansion, and supply chain infrastructure while competitors generally remain focused primarily on pricing," Dhindsa said.

He argued that discount-led growth comes at the cost of sustained cash burn and weaker unit economics.

"Pricing-led growth requires sustained cash burn, and leads QC companies into a systemic trap they can't easily walk out of - that is visible in multiple QC players struggling to balance both growth and profitability. This is different from traditional e-commerce, where discounting can be weaned off gradually, without hurting the business (much)," he said.

By contrast, "Infrastructure-led growth, on the other hand, builds operating leverage - each new store, each new category, each new city adds capacity that serves more customers at lower marginal cost. That's why we can grow rapidly and improve profitability at the same time," Dhindsa added.

Eternal's Q1FY27 scorecard

Eternal reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 92 crore for the June quarter, a 268% year-on-year increase from Rs 25 crore a year earlier, aided by robust growth across its businesses. Revenue from operations jumped 182% to Rs 20,211 crore from Rs 7,167 crore in the year-ago period, while adjusted EBITDA more than tripled to Rs 555 crore from Rs 172 crore. On a sequential basis, however, net profit declined 47% from Rs 174 crore in the March quarter, even as revenue rose 17% from Rs 17,292 crore.

Its food delivery business, operated under Zomato, saw Net Order Value (NOV) grow more than 20% year-on-year to Rs 10,769 crore, marking the fourth straight quarter of accelerating growth.

Quick commerce arm Blinkit continued its rapid expansion, with NOV surging 86% year-on-year to Rs 17,132 crore and growing 19% sequentially. The company added 200 net new stores during the quarter, taking its network to 2,443 stores, while adjusted EBITDA turned positive at Rs 102 crore, compared with a loss of Rs 162 crore a year earlier.

Meanwhile, the District going-out business reported 60% year-on-year NOV growth to Rs 3,218 crore, while Hyperpure posted a 27% rise in revenue to Rs 1,034 crore and swung to an adjusted EBITDA profit of Rs 6 crore from a loss of Rs 18 crore last year.