Zomato claims to have hit 28Mn monthly order run rate as it closes the gap with Swiggy

Restaurant discovery and food delivery firm Zomato claimed that it has achieved a 28 million monthly order run rate as of December 2018, a significant bump up from previously disclosed 21 million monthly run rate in October. To be sure, order run rate is not the absolute order volume for the firm. Order run rate helps project future order volume for the month and is calculated based on one week's volume (in this case the highest week during December).

Rival Swiggy continues to clock 28 million monthly orders in absolute terms, confirmed a person aware of the matter. Zomato declined to share its absolute numbers.

Additionally, Zomato’s dine-in subscription service Gold, now claims to have brought on board 7,00,000 members and over 6,000 restaurant partners up from 6,00,000 members and 4,000 restaurant, the company said. As of December 2018, Zomato's reward programme, Piggybank had 1.5 lakh subscribers, it said.

The online food-delivery industry stood out for being the most cash-guzzling and hyper-competitive in 2018 with both the major players raising capital across multiple financing rounds. The cash infusion led to the industry becoming hyper competitive as companies doled out offers and discounts to garner market share.

Industry sources estimate that both companies are losing $30-40 million each monthly. Aside of these two, Ola's Foodpanda and UberEats are the other two vying for the consumers' spends on food.

According to analysts tracking the space, foodtech industry witnessed 20% growth in December over November. Overall, the players clocked 2.1 million daily orders in December up from 1.75 million in November.

As reported by ET earlier in the week, Zomato has held talks with existing and new investors to pick up $500 million- $1 billion in funds on the back of Swiggy's $1 billion raise, announced last month.

Zomato ended FY18 with a 40% growth in revenues at Rs 466 crore. The firm also cut its corners squeezing losses by almost 73% to come in at Rs 106 crore in FY18 as compared to Rs 390 crore in FY17, according to financial documents filed with the Registrar of companies. Swiggy registered a 232% surge in revenue in FY18 at Rs 442 crore, with losses of Rs 397 crore.

In the last one year, both Swiggy and Zomato have also started a slew of new initiatives to go beyond food-delivery.