ETtech Explainer: Decoding Blinkit's 9X revenue surge amid slow margin growth

Eternal-owned Blinkit reported a 9x jump in its revenue in Q2 of FY26 to Rs 9,891 crore, up from Rs 1,156 crore in the same period last year. The revenue jump comes as the company moves to an inventory model from a marketplace model. Further, Blinkit's aggressive expansion of dark stores led to increased capital expenditure for the company.

ETtech explains:

How did Blinkit’s revenue increase 9x?


Blinkit’s net order value (NOV) for the September quarter rose 137% year-on-year (YoY), the highest in the last 10 quarters. Meanwhile, quarterly, it rose only 27%.

This comes as the platform has moved to an inventory model. It simply means that Blinkit will now place a purchase order for the number of products it wants from the brands. Instead of working as a marketplace—where brands pay a commission to the platform to sell products—Blinkit will be a seller.

“In Q2FY26, about 80% of the NOV was on our own inventory, which is expected to go to a steady state number of about 90% in the next quarter,” said Akshant Goyal, CFO, Eternal, in the shareholder’s letter.

Now, this shift has basically resulted in an increase in the revenue of the quick commerce platform since the entire cost of the product that a customer pays will be taken into account for the revenue generated.

“Earlier, Blinkit was only adding the commissions earned on each product to the revenue generated for the period,” said Satish Meena, founder of Datum Intelligence. “Now it’s buying the product and selling, so 100% of the money earned for each product sold will be added to its revenue.”

Also Read | ETtech Explainer: Why Blinkit is shifting to an inventory-led model

However, Meena explained that comparing the NOV for this year’s September quarter with last year would not be correct since the values accounted for in these two cases are different.

What constituted Eternal's capital expenditure?

The topline growth of Blinkit also came on the back of the aggressive expansion of its dark stores. The company added 272 new dark stores in the September quarter, bringing the total count to 1,816 stores. It plans to reach the 3,000 mark by March 2026.

This, in turn, led to high capital expenditure for the company.

“As far as capex is concerned, 90%+ of the capex in Q2FY26 was incurred in the quick commerce business,” said Akshant Goyal. This was on an average of Rs 1 crore per store.

Also Read: ETtech Q&A | Replicating Blinkit’s quick commerce moves won’t ensure success: CEO Albinder Dhindsa

But why did the margin not increase as expected?

Blinkit's revenue jump was a key driver of Eternal’s overall revenue growth for the September quarter, thanks to the inventory model. However, the margin growth was not as per expectations.

“Adjusted Ebitda (earnings before taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) margin (as a % of NOV) continued to improve QoQ to -1.3% from -1.8% in Q1FY26. The pace of margin improvement was slower than what we had anticipated at the beginning of the quarter, and that is because of additional investments in market share growth,” said Eternal chief executive Deepinder Goyal in the letter.

Also Read: “Will grow Blinkit’s market share aggressively”: Eternal CFO Akshant Goyal

Blinkit is focussing on capturing market share by expanding its dark store footprint and spending on marketing and customer acquisition this quarter.

While the company is compromising on its short-term gains, Blinkit chief executive Albinder Goyal said that it doesn’t change the company’s long-term outlook on margins.

Also Read: Blinkit won’t cede quick commerce market leadership under any circumstance, says Albinder Dhindsa