Zomato Losses Grow Over Three-Fold To Rs 359 Crore On Higher Expenses

Zomato's loss was reported despite over three-fold growth in revenues during the quarter to Rs 844 crore as the first quarter of last fiscal was severely impacted by lockdowns in 2020.

Zomato Logo | File Image

Mumbai: India's leading online food delivery platform Zomato, in its first quarterly results after its stellar stock market debut last month, reported a three-fold widening of its losses to Rs 359 crore for the June quarter compared to a net loss of Rs 99 crore in the year-ago period as expenses eclipsed its income. 

The company attributed the loss mainly on account of non-cash ESOP expenses, which have increased meaningfully in Q1 FY22 due to significant ESOP grants made in the quarter after creating a new ESOP 2021 scheme. "This divergence in reported profit/loss and Adjusted EBITDA will continue going forward," said a company statement. 

READ | Reliance Jio Plans To Bid For T-Mobile For $6 Billion 

The loss was reported despite over three-fold growth in revenues during the quarter to Rs 844 crore as the first quarter of last fiscal was severely impacted by the first wave of lockdowns in 2020. 

"Revenue growth was largely on the back of growth in our 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 in Q1 FY22, reversing most of the gains the industry made in Q4 FY21," said Zomato, backed by China's Ant Group. 

Along with Zomato's revenues, the country's leading food aggregator expenses also grew over three-fold to Rs 1259.7 crore during the quarter. 

Zomato had its most significant gross order value (GOV), the number of orders, transactional users, and active delivery partners during the quarter under review as its GOV increased by more than fourfold to Rs 4,540 crore.

How Much Zomato's Delivery Partner Earns?

On average, the top 20% of Zomato's delivery partners who deliver on bikes and put in more than 40 hours a week receive a payout of more than Rs 27,000 per month, according to Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal. The company had over 3.1 lakh active delivery partners in July, the highest ever since its inception. 

"We believe we pay our delivery partners fairly for the work that they put in. We are proud to create hundreds of thousands of gigs for strata of society that otherwise didn't have a predictable source of income. Perhaps, the reason why our delivery partners work with us is because they see higher earnings potential compared to other jobs/gigs available to them at the moment," Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal, and CFO Akshant Goyal said in a letter.

Last week, Zomato reached the milestone of delivery of a billion orders.

"It took us 6 years to get to this milestone and we hope it takes us much less time to deliver the next billion. The fact that 10%+ of these billion orders were delivered only in the last three months makes us confident about getting to the next billion much sooner," said Deepinder and Akshant. 

Ahead of the results, Zomato shares on BSE closed down 4.22% at Rs 124.95, valuing the company at Rs 98,025.5 crore.  

Zomato was listed on the bourses on July 23 and attained a market capitalization of Rs 1.08 lakh crore on the BSE, making it one of the few listed businesses to enter the 1 lakh crore market cap club on their first day of trading.