Online food ordering firm Zomato, which got listed last month, delivered its billionth order last week, co-founder and chief executive officer Deepinder Goyal said on August 10.
"It took us six years to get to this milestone and we hope it takes us much less time to deliver the next billion. The fact that 10 percent plus of these billion orders were delivered only in the last three months makes us confident about getting to the next billion much sooner," he said in a blog.
The company's net loss widened to Rs 356 crore during the quarter ended June 30, 2021, against Rs 99.8 crore during the like period of the previous financial year, as per the filing on the regulatory exchange.
The total income of the company stood at Rs 916 crore during the quarter under review. This was a massive jump from a revenue of Rs 283.5 crore it reported in the year-ago period.
According to the company, the revenue growth was largely on the back of growth in its core food delivery business which continued to grow despite the severe COVID wave starting April.
On the other hand, COVID significantly impacted the dining-out business during the quarter, reversing most of the gains the industry made during the quarter ending March.
"Q1 FY22 was also one of the most challenging quarters for our team. As the second COVID wave ravaged the nation, we were left scrambling to work on multiple things at the same time. At the peak of the second wave, almost 35 percent of our employees were battling COVID in their households. On top of it, we were executing very hard along with Feeding India to source and distribute oxygen concentrators to as many hospitals in need as possible. In hindsight, our team battled against the odds to execute extremely well amidst this challenging environment," said Goyal.
He also said that the company's India food delivery business continued to remain contribution positive even though the contribution margin reduced slightly in the quarter ending June as compared to the previous quarter on account of growth investments in addition to the costlier business environment (due to lockdowns) in which this growth was achieved.
Zomato also said it had improved its pay structure during the course of the year.
"We added an additional fee for long distance and increase in fuel prices (among other variables) to ensure delivery partners are fairly compensated. The subsequent increase in their earnings per order is 15 percent higher than what it was about a year ago," Goyal said.
Zomato claims that the top 20 percent of its delivery partners who deliver on bikes and put in more than 40 hours a week received a payout of more than Rs 27,000 per month. It had 310,000 active delivery partners in July.