Zomato Surges 20% As Loss Narrows, Food Delivery Business Breaks Even Operationally

Here's what brokerages made of Zomato's Q1 FY23 results.

A Zomato food delivery courier. (Source: Company website)

Shares of Zomato Ltd. surged 20%, the most in two months, on account of its less-than-expected loss, higher order volumes and food delivery business breaking even operationally in the first quarter of this fiscal.

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Here's what brokerages made of Zomato's Q1 FY23 results.

Dolat Capital

  • Maintains 'negative view' on the stock but may review estimates after the earnings call.

  • Results beat estimates on all count, business metrics improving.

  • Gross order volume growth was led by robust growth in order volumes and mild growth in average order values as compared to the previous quarter.

  • Customer delivery charges (not included in P&L, but gets adjusted at revenue line) grew by 19.6% QoQ. The company expects the order growth momentum to continue in coming quarters led by strong order frequency.

  • Management is very bullish on Hyperpure, and said it can leverage its quick-commerce capabilities into this business unit. The company mentioned that Bangalore is already trending toward Ebitda break-even and due to continued improvement in margins owing to economies of scale, operating leverage and improvement in gross margins, it remains confident on achieving 5-10% Ebitda margin overall in a steady state situation in this business.

  • Increase in customer delivery charges levied by Blinkit to customers has led to consolidation of multiple orders which results in average order values going up and the frequency coming down.

  • The operating metrics are giving strong signals on improvement in unit economics performance. The company has undergone significant measures to reduce the losses which is a healthy sign but could also mean lower growth in coming quarters, which needs to be introspected.

Jefferies

  • Has a 'buy' rating with a target price of Rs 100, implying a potential upside of 115%.

  • Q1 results suggest that Jefferies underestimated the management's urgency towards profitability, as adjusted operating loss came at a low of Rs 150 crore, with break-even at food delivery.

  • Heartening to see this is despite a double-digit QoQ growth in gross order value. Blinkit is also mirroring the trend with strong growth coupled with eye on loss.

  • Growth and unit economics improvement was consistent across large and small cities. Efficiency gains outweighed the impact of higher fuel and wage cost inflation, driving contribution margins higher.

  • Continuing to drive growth along with loss reduction, with acute focus on a lean cost structure.

Kotak Institutional Equities

  • Maintains 'buy' rating at a fair value of Rs 80, implying a potential upside of 9.3%.

  • Zomato posted better-than-expected revenue growth of 67% yoy led by monthly transacting user growth of 36% YoY, food delivery GOV growth, higher restaurant commissions and Hyperpure growth.

  • User addition is impressive in the light of the fact that advertising and/or discounting does not seem to have increased and Q1 was the first post-Covid quarter with dining-out resuming.

  • Costs per order remained flattish sequentially, and the entire contribution margin improvement (~Rs 4.4 per order) was driven by higher revenue per order.

  • Zomato’s attempts to accelerate growth while simultaneously aiming to improve profitability in the core business is a positive. Increase FY23-25 revenues estimates by 4-6% on account of higher revenues in Hyperpure.

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WRITTEN BY
Rishabh Bhatnagar
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