Blinkit's Albinder Dhindsa: Some players have been spending more on marketing, subsidies
Blinkit aims to hit 2,000 dark stores by the end of 2026 from 639 at the end of the June quarter.
ADVERTISEMENT
Addressing the increasing competitive intensity in the quick commerce industry and whether this is likely to impact growth and profitability in the short to medium term, Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa said, "Competitive intensity in the quick commerce category has been high since the word ‘quick commerce’ was coined."
In a letter to shareholders, Dhindsa, who leads the Zomato-owned q-comm app, took a shot at the competition's heightened marketing activity and subsidies. The Blinkit boss said some players have been spending more on marketing and subsidies. "However, our customers, who value quality of service and reliability, seem to be unaffected and that reflects in our performance of the quarter, where we have grown 20%+ without the need to match the spends or subsidies of our competitors."
Dhindsa added that their ongoing priority, therefore, remains to ensure that "we continue to delight our discerning customers and work on building capabilities and systems that add value for such customers in the long run. This focus has served us well in the past and will do so in the future as well."
Blinkit aims to hit 2,000 dark stores by the end of 2026 from 639 at the end of the June quarter. "As of now, we see a line of sight of getting to about 2,000 stores for our current business. Most of these stores would be in top 10 cities in India. Beyond the large cities, the size of the market is still undiscovered. If everything goes as planned (which usually doesn’t), we plan to get to 2,000 stores, latest by the end of 2026 while remaining profitable," Dhindsa said on August 1.
"Our average GOV (gross order value) throughput per store has grown from about Rs 6 lakh per day per store when we were at 383 stores exactly a year ago to about Rs 10 lakh today when we are at 639 stores. For our top 50 stores today, this number is Rs 18 lakh per day per store, and growing," he added.
Its GOV grew 130% year-on-year to Rs 4,923 crore in the June quarter, while operating loss decreased to Rs 3 crore.
Dhindsa also shed light assortment/ category expansion on the Blinkit platform over the past couple of years, hinting at newer opportunities.
"We have been focused from the beginning to increase the selection for our customers and offer it in the most efficient way to them. This has meant that the average selection available to customers in any neighbourhood has increased between 4-5x over the last eight quarters - we are now able to offer up to 25,000 unique SKUs to our customers in some locations.:
"A large part of this expansion in selection has happened outside of the traditional grocery segments of FMCG, fruits & vegetables and staples. Over the last six quarters, we have launched and scaled products in electronics, beauty & make-up, pet care, and toys & games and we will continue to invest behind opportunities in newer categories as well," Dhindsa said.
