Apollo 24|7’s 19-minute delivery service has quickly become a major driver of its online business, contributing to nearly 30% of all daily orders, according to a senior company official. Out of approximately 45,000 orders received daily on the Apollo 24|7 platform, 28-30% are fulfilled through its rapid delivery offering.
Madhivanan Balakrishnan, CEO of Apollo Healthco and chief digital & technology officer at Apollo Group, told FE that about 90% of all online orders are delivered on the same day. Orders from smaller cities, however, are typically dispatched via courier services.
Apollo Healthco operates both the company’s offline pharmacy distribution network and the Apollo 24|7 digital platform. The 19-minute delivery service was first launched in Delhi and Noida in November 2023 and has since expanded to six major cities, including Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, and Hyderabad. The company plans to scale this service to 20 cities by the end of 2025.
Looking ahead, Apollo expects its daily online order volume to rise to 60,000 by the end of the year, though the proportion of 19-minute deliveries is expected to remain steady at 28-30%. The company enables these rapid deliveries through a combination of large-format stores and dark stores. Currently, Apollo operates around 12-14 large stores and 10-12 dark stores, with further expansion planned as demand for quick commerce grows.
With the quick commerce sector intensifying competition in medicine delivery, Apollo is positioning itself for an advantage. Several platforms are entering the pharmacy space to boost order values and margins. Swiggy Instamart, for instance, has partnered with PharmEasy to pilot 10-minute medicine deliveries in Bengaluru, while BigBasket’s BB Now is also gearing up to enter the segment.
Balakrishnan believes Apollo holds an edge due to its extensive product range and prescription validation model. While an Apollo retail outlet offers around 6,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs), its online platform lists nearly 45,000. He said that quick commerce firms will find it challenging to match this scale.
For prescription drugs, Apollo 24|7 requires customers to either upload a doctor’s prescription or schedule a verification call. In the case of 19-minute deliveries, these calls occur within 1-2 minutes of order placement. If a prescription is not validated, the product is removed from the order.
Balakrishnan acknowledged the challenges of implementing such a model but said its necessary for expanding beyond over-the-counter medications. As competition grows, Apollo is prepared to adapt. To optimise delivery speed, the company relies on an in-house team for 19-minute deliveries, while other orders are fulfilled through logistics partners like Shadowfax.
While deliveries sometimes extend to 29 minutes, Balakrishnan noted that this has not posed a significant challenge for the company so far.