The eating habits of people have changed so far, specifically because of the lockdown. People become more familiar with ordering food online from the convenience of their homes. Two players, Zomato and Swiggy are dominating the Indian food delivery industry.
Food delivery businesses got paced during the lockdown period. According to the Research Report of the ETC group, Swiggy is the ninth and Zomato is the tenth biggest Food delivery company in the world.
Both these companies are adopting and experimenting with new things to dominate the market. So here we are with the full analysis to let you know who will win the food delivery race.
Food Delivery Industry in India
Innovations of Zomato
Innovations by Swiggy
Figure Overview: Zomato vs Swiggy
Marketing of Zomato
Marketing of Swiggy
Food Delivery Industry in India
The Indian food delivery industry was valued at $5 billion in the year 2020, which is growing at 30% CAGR every year and is expected to reach around $21 billion by 2026. Since the growth is not steady and it fluctuates depending on various factors, it is still one of the fastest-growing industries in India.
The industry has shown tremendous growth over the past couple of years. The main reasons behind the growth are as follows.
Covid-19 Pandemic
Due to the lockdown, footfall in restaurants decreased and restaurants started to go online with the help of these food aggregator platforms. People started to take care of their hygiene and because of the lockdown, they prefer ordering food online despite going out and buying them.
Digitalization
In 2016, JIO brought a revolution in the digital space by providing high-speed internet at a cheaper price. This proved as a boon for cloud-based tech companies because they got access to more people to provide their services. Zomato and Swiggy also benefited from this revolution which resulted in a faster expansion in different cities.
Innovations of Zomato
Zomato always strives for different innovative stuff to improve customer experience. Some innovations are the next level try, which have capabilities to disrupt the market. Let's have a closer look at what Zomato has done so far to stay ahead in the food delivery race.
Hyperpure
Hyperpure is one of Zomato's initiatives to provide fresh and high-quality ingredients to restaurants. Restaurants can choose from 1200+ ingredients and kitchen products which will be directly delivered to the restaurant address. Now there is no headache for restaurant owners buying kitchen commodities for daily use.
For product outsourcing, Zomato has a network of professionals that includes farmers, mills, producers, and processors. Sellers on Hyperpure are verified and only those sellers are appointed who are looking for a long-term partnership.
10-min Delivery by Zomato Instant
According to Zomato, sorting restaurants by delivery time is the most used feature in the app. This shows that customers want quicker delivery, they don't want to wait. Zomato recognized this and launched Zomato instant, which is a 10-min delivery service for food from restaurants.
After listening to all this you might think that Zomato is putting extra pressure on its delivery partners and restaurant partners, but it's not like that. According to Zomato, their delivery partners are not informed about the promised delivery time nor they penalize for late delivery.
All this delivery works on a demand prediction algorithm, there is a network of finishing stations which is located near the high-demand area for the fulfillment of each order.
Interstate Delivery by Zomato Intercity Legends
Ordering legendary and famous foods of any state to your home is the concept introduced by Zomato. Now you can order biryani from Hyderabad, and rasgullas from Kolkata and they will be delivered to you the next day. 'Intercity legends' is the way to enjoy iconic dishes of different cities and states.
'Intercity legends' is still in the pilot stage but the response is extremely good. It is available for selected customers in Gurgaon and some parts of south Delhi. But the innovative step taken by Zomato to bring iconic dishes of different states to our doorstep is appreciable.
Your order reaches you via a flight with proper packaging, there is a proper logistic system designed to deliver the order to you in the given time.
Voice Instructions for Delivery Location
Mapping in India is not that precise, and sometimes it is hard to find locations based on written delivery addresses. Zomato, which always tries to enhance user experience, brings a new feature in its app which allows users to provide voice instructions for the direction to their homes.
To use this feature, you need to click on the delivery instruction tab and then hold the record button to give the information related to your delivery location. This feature is helpful because sometimes delivery partners face issues in finding the delivery location and they need to call the customer which ultimately delays the delivery and leaves a bad taste in customer satisfaction.
PV Vyshnavi
Street Vendors on the Zomato Platform
Street food is the best, cheap, and most tasty alternative we prefer over restaurants. Sometimes we are used to eating food from any street vendor and often say 'chal kallu ke chhole bhature khane Chalte hai'. These street vendors suffered a lot during the lockdown period.
Zomato in collaboration with the government of India started an initiative to bring this street vendor onto its platform. The government launched Prime minister Street Vendor's AtmaNirbhar Nidhi scheme (PM SVAnidhi scheme) to provide working capital loans and increase digital payment for these vendors.
So far, Zomato has onboarded approx 965 street vendors on its platform across different cities like Vadodara, Bhopal, Nagpur, Jabalpur, and Ludhiana.
Innovations by Swiggy
Swiggy is also not behind the race for innovation; various steps have been taken by Swiggy to improve its delivery services and user experience.
AI to Improve Delivery Services
Swiggy is using AI technology to fill the loopholes present in the different stages of delivery. Swiggy has improved its AI to the extent that now delivery executives can't change their status to 'Arrived' before they reach the restaurant. Everything is connected with GPS for location tracking to ensure transparency.
Data is the fuel for today's world and this company is leveraging it very efficiently. AI is used for the future prediction of orders, customer behavior, and interaction with the help of previously available data.
With the help of AI, Swiggy provides a personalized list of restaurants based on your previous order, reviews, search, and interaction. It also recommends different dishes which you are most likely to order.
Swiggy One - To Integrate Everything in the App
The first membership program launched by Swiggy was Swiggy Super in the year 2018, which provides free delivery on restaurant orders. Since then, Swiggy has launched different services like Instamart and Swiggy genie to boost its quick commerce.
So despite installing the different apps and using these services separately, Swiggy has integrated all these services under one roof called Swiggy one. Now users have to install only one app which is Swiggy, create only one account and buy only one membership plan offered by Swiggy.
Just by using one app, users can order food from the restaurant, buy groceries using Instamart services, and deliver anything with Swiggy genie. Benefits like discounts and free delivery can be availed by membership users.
Delivery by Drone
Food-tech space in India is going through a revolution phase. Swiggy is working on providing delivery using drones, and multiple pilots are conducted to make this concept operational. The whole concept revolves around transferring the goods from the dark stores to the nearest seller location of the customer.
The first trial was commenced by Garuda aerospace in Delhi-NCR and Bengaluru to use drones for grocery delivery. Based on the performance of the first trial in Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR, Swiggy will conduct a second trial with ANRA technology, Techeagle, and Marut drone tech.
Multimedia Card Insights: Enhanced User Experience
Providing a better Customer Experience is the way to build long-term trust among customers. Today companies are doing so many things to enrich the user experience on its platform. They know very well that a bad user experience will directly lead to a decrease in customer base.
Swiggy has launched a new innovative multimedia card insights, which is a new way to showcase the product overview. Images and Lottie animations are old, things have changed in this new era. In this new multimedia card, informative videos are used to show the product's features.
Mahenoor Mansuri
Figure Overview: Zomato vs Swiggy
| Facts | Zomato | Swiggy |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Restaurants | 3 Lakhs+ | 1.5 Lakhs+ |
| Cities Covered | 1000+ | 500+ |
| App Downloads | 100 Million+ | 100 Million+ |
| Number of Employees | 5000+ | 6000+ |
| Revenue (2021) | 18.07 Billion INR | 25 Billion INR |
| Total Fundings Raised | $2.6 Billion (in 22 rounds) | $2.9 Billion (in 16 rounds) |
| Google App Rating | 4.5 | 4.4 |
Marketing of Zomato
The top-notch marketing strategy of Zomato always supports its presence in the market. The food delivery industry has never been so interesting, but things have changed now. Let's have a look at some of the popular marketing of Zomato.
Zomaland
Zomaland is a carnival consisting of the best restaurants, powerful performances, amazing attractions, and a plethora of other events making this a food festival.
Started in 2019, this food carnival of Zomato became successful by hosting 1.5 lakh+ visitors, 300+ restaurants, and served more than 3.5 lakh dishes. Many famous artists like Badshah, Hardy Sandhu, Divine, and many more were reported to perform in order to relish the visitors.
Now Zomaland season 2 has arrived with full energy in cities like Pune, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. This marketing event by Zomato is one of the most popular and successful.
Meme and Creative Marketing
Meme and creative marketing of Zomato are the best in the industry. If you look at the social media handle, you will find so many creative marketing memes which connect with the audience and interestingly convey the message.
Marketing of Swiggy
The marketing campaign is an integral part of Swiggy, it gives neck-to-neck competition to its biggest rival 'Zomato'. The recently launched marketing campaign of Swiggy is the best example of it.
Why is this a Swiggy ad? Is a marketing campaign introduced by Swiggy in which you have to answer 'why is this a Swiggy ad?' After looking at the picture published by Swiggy.
This marketing move grabbed the attention of many customers because of the challenge they had given. Swiggy also announced Rupees 1 lakh worth of Swiggy money to the person who gives the right answer.
Approximately 800,000 people participated online with their own theories behind the campaign making it one of the most successful Swiggy user-generated campaigns and the question "Why is this a Swiggy ad" was one of the most searched topics on Google that week.
Conclusion
Although both companies are doing exceptionally well in every aspect to deliver quality food to consumers. Zomato is in a better position in terms of market share, marketing, innovation, and acquisition. But on the flip side, Swiggy is doing better in providing essential relief to its delivery executives, which eventually leads to better consumer satisfaction.
FAQs
What are the top 3 food delivery apps?
The top 3 food delivery apps in India are Zomato, Swiggy, and Dominos.
Is Swiggy successful in India?
Yes, Swiggy is considered a successful startup in India irrespective of its rough path it has successfully created a great example in the market for other startups to learn from.
Is Swiggy losing to Zomato?
As for the insights shared by Jefferies, the gross value of Swiggy's food delivery operation in the first half of 2022 was $1.3 billion whereas Zomato recorded $1.6 billion of the order value for its food delivery operations. From this, it can be estimated that Swiggy has lagged at several points to Zomato. However, the real winner is still a debatable topic.
Is Swiggy ahead of Zomato?
Both companies are fierce in their competition. When we talk about gross value, Swiggy lagged behind Zomato. However, with the acquisition of a quick commerce platform Blinkit, Swiggy crossed Zomato in the quick commerce space to capture all e-commerce markets and move ahead of Zomato.
