Food delivery volumes back to 85% of pre-Covid levels, says Swiggy

After Zomato’s food delivery volumes touched pre-Covid-19 peaks, Swiggy said its overall business has recovered about 80-85 per cent of pre-Covid order values. 

The recovery is taking place owing to multiple rounds of unlocks and restaurants opening up for business.

Over 100 million orders were placed on the Swiggy app for food, groceries, medicines and other household items since the lockdown. Over 200 cities have reached 90 per cent of pre-Covid gross merchandise value (GMV) levels with more than 70 cities seeing a full recovery. 

“In fact, it has seen double-digit growth over the past 4-5 weeks, especially when the lockdown ended and consumer fear factor of Covid subdued,” said Swiggy. “Certain micro pockets within the country have also reached 200 per cent of their pre-Covid levels,” it added.

Zomato founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Deepinder Goyal said a number of cities are now at over 120 per cent of pre-Covid peaks. “Food delivery is one of the safest recreational options available to our customers during the pandemic. Going forward, we anticipate the food delivery sector to continue to grow at about 15-25 per cent month-on-month for the foreseeable future,” said Goyal, in a tweet.

He said since the end of March, Gurugram-based Zomato has delivered a total of 92 million orders – and there have been zero reported cases of  Covid transmission through food delivery or food delivery agents. He said a few weeks ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) also categorically stated that people should not fear food or its packaging, processing or delivery.

Rohan Agarwal, director at research firm RedSeer Consulting, said the Indian Premier League (IPL) and its promotions in the form of campaigns and engagements have definitely strengthened the food volumes.

“IPL has played a key role. Due to the event, food delivery volumes are seeing a jump and food tech companies are capitalising on that demand,” said Agarwal. “IPL is like a festive season for food delivery platforms. During IPL, consumers come together to watch matches. Snacking together is one of the associated behaviours.” 

Given the absence of live sporting action on account of the pandemic, analysts have said consolidated viewership across TV and digital for the IPL could cross 700 million this year. It stood at over 600 million last year.

Agarwal said over the last few months, food delivery business has started to recover slowly as the perception of catching the virus due to food delivery is reducing.