Bengaluru-based food delivery major Swiggy has expanded its presence to more towns and cities and is now present in 200 cities. As part of its expansion, Swiggy has now launched operations in Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu, Hassan and Bidar in Karnataka; Khammam and Karimnagar in Telangana; and Karimnagar and Madanapalle in Andhra Pradesh.
Interestingly, rival Zomato too, has expanded its presence to 300+ cities. Zomato has now launched operations in Machilipatnam, Nandyal, Ongole, Tanuku and Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh, Kottayam, Muvattupuzha, Alappuzha in Kerala, Ambur, Hosur, Thoothukudi, Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu; Karwar, Kundapura-Koteshwar, Bidar, Kolar, Moodbidri, Kasaragod, Mandya, Madikeri, Gadag-Betageri, Bhatkal and Chitradurga in Karnataka; and Nizamabad and Siddipet in Telangana.
Both Swiggy and Zomato also say that they continue to expand operations into new cities every day. While Zomato says it is testing unchartered territories across the country and also focusing on improving its average delivery time, Swiggy says its focus is on going deep in each city and winning each city.
The food delivery market in India has been seeing aggressive competition over the past few years, while there were several contenders at one point, the competition has now boiled down to Swiggy and Zomato with Foodpanda and UberEATS remaining distant third and fourth players. However, Ola has now decided to scale down Foodpanda with a focus on cloud kitchens and there have been reports that Uber is looking to sell off its food delivery arm.
According to latest data from market intelligence firm Kalagato, Swiggy has emerged the leader, having nearly half the market share by transactional volume. As per this data, Swiggy has a market share of 36.40%, while Zomato holds 23.78%.
In terms of average frequency of spend per user as well, Swiggy has won over Zomato.
However, while Swiggy holds a much higher share of the Indian food delivery market, Zomato was the second most installed food app globally, after UberEATS in 2018, according to a report by App Annie. In India as well, Zomato has a much larger presence in tier 2 and 3 cities, having over 30% market share, when it comes to app installs.
Both Swiggy and Zomato have been innovating in terms of offerings and discounts to attract more customers to its platforms. Zomato, with offerings like Zomato Gold, has been able to tap the interest of both online and offline food lovers.
Swiggy, too, has launched its own loyalty program ‘Swigy Super’, and has also launched varied products such as Swiggy Pop, Swiggy Stores, and the most recently launched Swiggy Daily.
What remains to be seen now is if both players continue to offer discounts and offers to attract customers and how many loyal customers both have, once these discounts die down.