Zomato clocks 60% higher GMV this New Year’s Eve over last year

As home-bound Indians ushered in the New Year with low-key celebrations, demand for online food delivery services ballooned. Zomato claims to have clocked nearly 60% higher gross merchandise value (GMV) this New Year’s Eve over last year — a GMV of Rs 75 crore in a single day.

Zomato touched a peak orders per minute (OPM) rate of 4,254 on Thursday, and had around 1,00,000 delivery partners on the ground to process the orders. “If we had unconstrained supply, we could have hit Rs 100 crore of GMV yesterday,” founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said in a tweet on Friday.

Even as the dine-in segment struggles to get its business back in shape, food delivery has boomed as home-bound consumers have taken to online ordering. More people explored the concept, which otherwise was subscribed largely by corporates and millennials. Industry experts said delivery and takeaway will continue to lead the sectoral trend in 2021. Goyal said failure and customer complaint rates are at an all-time low for food delivery in India.

“I strongly believe that Indian start-ups do not need to look out to other countries for growth. There is a tremendous amount of market depth in India,” the CEO said.

Zomato also clocked a 34% higher GMV this Christmas over last year, making it the “biggest ever” Christmas for food delivery in the country.

The firm cornered the bulk of the start-up funding garnered by the online food delivery space this year. Zomato closed a $660 million financial round backed by 10 new investors, including Tiger Global Management and Mirae Asset, at a post-money valuation of $3.9 billion.