Zomato's net loss widens to Rs 347 cr in December quarter

New Delhi, Feb 10

Online food platform Zomato's consolidated loss widened to Rs 346.6 crore (year-on-year) for the quarter ended December 31, against a loss of Rs 63 crore in the same period last year, the company said on Thursday.

The company said that adjusted revenue witnessed a 66 per cent growth to Rs 2,363 crore (YoY).

Zomato Founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said that the long-term opportunity remains large and exciting.

"We think that the current slowdown is a result of a few temporary factors - a) macro slowdown for the mid-market segment, b) boom in dining out for the premium-end, and c) boom in travel at the premium-end," he said in the company's earnings results.

"We continue to stay focused on our long-term growth vectors without worrying too much about near-term growth pressures," he added.

Zomato's adjusted EBITDA loss increased to Rs 265 crore in the December quarter as against Rs 192 crore in the September quarter.

Excluding Blinkit, the operating loss was Rs 38 crore compared with Rs 272 crore a year ago, according to the company.

The company added 23 million new customers in CY22 as compared to 23.6 million in CY21.

"These are customers who placed at least 1 order on Zomato in the year. Even in the last quarter of CY22, while the overall demand was soft, the pace of new customer addition was strong," said Zomato.

The company said that Hyperpure revenue grew 26 per cent QoQ to Rs 4.21 billion in Q3FY23.

Zomato launched a brand-new membership programme called Zomato Gold in late January.

"We expect this programme to drive loyalty and higher frequency of ordering going forward," said Goyal.

In less than a month, the Zomato Gold program has scaled to 900k+ members.

On dine-out business, Goyal said the business is starting to take off, "but still doesn't contribute meaningfully to the overall size of the business".

"That should happen over time. We will share more when we have more to share," he added.