Ali Hasan
2020 was really a bad year for millions of people including Swiggy and Zomato but just like the climax of any movie, it ended well for both these food delivery Unicorns.
This happened as they were able to clock more than 4,000 orders per minute. On New Year’s Eve, Zomato reached a peak of 4,254 orders per minute while Swiggy crossed more than 5,500 orders per minute.
The reason why the last day of 2020 became so much profitable for these start-ups was due to the fact that restrictions and curfews were placed in multiple cities. This forced people to stay indoors and it seemed they didn’t like it as they wanted to celebrate the New Year. After all, 2020 has been so rude to them; they do have a reason to celebrate.
The numbers were confirmed by Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal himself. In a series of tweets, Deepinder Goyal said that the company’s Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) was 60% more than that of last New Year’s Eve. “That’s a GMV of ₹75 crores in one single day, with peak orders per minute (OPM) rate of 4,254.
He also added that the demand was more than the company could process, and that they ran out of delivery partner capacity much before peak time. “If we had unconstrained supply, we could have hit ₹100 crores of GMV yesterday. Need to do better next time,” he tweeted, saying that nearly 1,00,000 delivery personnel delivered orders yesterday.
He also tweeted at 7:53 pm, “1.4 lakh live orders right now. 20K Briyanis and 16K Pizzas are in transit. 40% of them Extra Cheese Pizzas.
Zomato also clocked a 34% higher GMV this Christmas over last year, making it the “biggest ever” Christmas for food delivery in the country. “I strongly believe that Indian start-ups do not need to look out to other countries for growth. There is a tremendous amount of market depth in India,” the CEO said.
A Swiggy spokesperson said that traffic increased by 100% during dinnertime, with Tier 2 and 3 cities like Jaipur and Vizag increasing by almost 200%. Swiggy said that Tier 3 and 4 cities such as Berhampur, Rourkela and Karimnagar saw a 150-200% growth, which was higher than what it observed in the metros.
We wish our readers a very happy and prosperous 2021.
