India is fertile land, and no one doubts about it.But we have proved ourselves to be hugely incapable in tapping our own resources.If you don't use your tool someone else will definitely use it , that's the rule in business and elsewhere.
The business atmosphere is currently watching an unprecedented growth of food delivery companies. From a startup point of view,they have achieved quite a lot hitherto The three companies, Uber Eats, Swiggy, and Zomato have changed the direction of the tides in business.
The Indian online food delivery market estimated to be having an annual revenue of 9,000 dollars is a big startup competition area. The main players being Zomato, Swiggy, and Uber Eats.
The gurugram based Zomato have been in the market from 2008 ,but the market being lukewarm they couldn't reap from it.Many other ordering services like foodpanda, tinyowl, Ola cafe were also launched but couldn't find a place in the market.
Its after the entry of Bangalore based Swiggy,in 2014, the tides change.The market was in a turmoil when Swiggy entered ,the before mentioned companies like foodpanda proving to be disaster. By focusing on logistics and attracting consumers by offering them coupons and rewards,the company earned large followers. Zomato also started picking up. Ola acquired foodpanda.Gradually,the food delivery market was estimated at 15 billion dollars in 2015,which was welcomed globally. In 2017 the behemoth Uber introduced its delivery wing in India and the competition stiffened.
But if we watch closely and look at the investors of this services,South African investment company Naspers Ltd.,has a 23% stake in Swiggy which they are planning to increase to 40% ,tencent the chinese company who owns wechat is also increasing their investment.
Zomato is backed by Alibaba's Ant financial which is infusing a lot of money into it. Now Alibaba and Tencent are the companies often used as proxies for companies looking to invest in China.Alibaba278 have a strong growth in China but Tencent is slowing down due to its unstable business model and unfair revenue generation. It doesn't surprise me when I saw the biggest players in the booming Indian market are backed by chinese enterprises who are inturn backed by larger behemoths .
And surely it was not a surprise to me when Zomato acquired Uber Eats at a high price which was already coming with a considerable operational loss,but hey Zomato got hold of 55% market share which was far less before.But Swiggy being the unicorn still has the rest with other services completely out of the arena. Zomato couldn't have done this without the splurge of Alibaba ,because Indian market is so precious for them.But the nasper and Tencent based Swiggy is not going to stop either ,they are coming up with strategies and willingness to spend more.
Even Though the infusion of foreign investment is good for our country,the control we leave for them to have own our business is not advisable. So the visible frontrunners in the successful Indian food delivery scenario being Swiggy and Zomato,it will be interesting to watch the next turns of events,waitin for the chapters to unfold