The number of orders delivered each day by the top three quick commerce firms — Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart —doubled in March compared to the same month last year, industry data showed.
Underscoring increasing adoption of quick commerce, the daily average orders on these platforms rose to around 4.5 million in March against around 2.2 million orders in the same month last year.
The top three firms continued to dominate the quick commerce space, accounting for over 85% of all orders during the month. The next two biggest players currently are BBNow and Flipkart Minutes.
The data showed that Blinkit continues to lead the industry in terms of number of orders, but Zepto is closely following it.
The Eternal-owned company delivered around 1.7-1.8 million orders daily and Zepto delivered around 1.5 million orders daily. Swiggy Instamart, however, delivered around 1-1.1 million orders daily.
An industry analyst told FE that Zepto was growing faster than its peers in terms of number of orders. “They have started to improve their assortment and are really aggressive on discounts,” he said, adding that this has also meant a high cash burn for the company. The company is now burning around `200 crore every month.
Blinkit, on the other hand, has continued to focus on improving customer experience and expanding its network of dark stores. Its number of daily orders has increased nearly 80-90%, lower than Zepto’s 170-180%.
Swiggy Instamart’s growth has been relatively lower at around 50-60% as it has also increased its focus on 10-minute food delivery service, Bolt. They have rapidly scaled Bolt to 500 cities and have now shut down their hyperlocal delivery service Genie.
The next two biggest players — BBNow and Flipkart Minutes — together account for around 0.8 million orders.
Tata-owned BBNow accounted for a larger share of 0.5 million. It has recently pivoted to quick commerce from its earlier model of slotted deliveries. Flipkart Minutes is still in its early stages and rolling out in several locations.
Amazon has also launched its quick commerce service Amazon Now in Bengaluru.
During a recent analyst call, Eternal’s CFO Akshant Goyal said that quick commerce is likely to witness heightened competition but the company would look to aggressively increase its market share.