Zomato shares climb 3% as online food delivery firm hikes platform fee by 20%

Shares of Zomato Ltd climbed 3 per cent in Monday's trade after the online food delivery platform, along with unlisted Swiggy, reportedly raised platform fee to Rs 6 per order from Rs 5 earlier in key markets such as Bengaluru and Delhi.

Zomato had in April raised its platform fee to Rs 5 per order from Rs 4 in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Lucknow and National Capital Region. Zomato and Swiggy had introduced platform fee last year, initially at Rs 2 per order. Swiggy is also teasing a platform fee of Rs 7 in Bengaluru, which has been struck off and discounted to Rs 6, The Times of India reported. Business Today could not independently verify the report.

Following the development, the stock rose 3.17 per cent to hit a high of Rs 229.50 on BSE.

In its Q1 earnings preview note, Elara Securities said Zomato is likely to report an overall revenue of Rs 3,960 crore in the June quarter , up 63.9 per cent YoY, as traction in food delivery and qCommerce business continued. May 2024 though was slightly muted for Zomato, given the impact of heat waves, low availability of delivery partners in tier I markets, and the general elections, which hit order volume. But volume started to pick up pace in June and momentum may sustain in the near term, it said.

For the June quarter, ICICI Secuirties expects Zomato’s food delivery gross order value (GOV) to grow 22.9 per cent YoY in the June quarter. It anticipates food average order value (AOV) to remain flattish sequentially and up 2 per cent YoY. It expects Blinkit’s adjusted revenue to grow 26 per cent QoQ or 153 per cent YoY. Hyperpure’s business' adjusted revenue is seen growing 15.7 per cent QoQ or 78 per cent YoY in Q1FY25E.

"Overall, we estimate adjusted revenue growth of 14 per cent QoQ (59 per cent YoY) and overall adjusted Ebitda margin to improve to 7.9 per cent as a proportion of adjusted revenue (vs 5.01 per cent in Q3FY24/ 0.4 per cent in Q1FY24). We estimate an adjusted Ebitda of Rs 350 crore in Q1FY25 (vs Rs 190 crore in Q4FY24)," it said.