Does Zomato want to zoom into the trail of big tech name-changers?

Perhaps so. But, whether Deepinder Goyal’s Eternal will be the game-changer for the flagship food delivery brand is a $30 Bn question that only time can answer.

If anything this rebranding of the startup signifies, it is the chief executive’s ambition to build a big business empire that would shroud how a slowdown in India’s INR 5.5 Lakh Cr food delivery sector is fast eating into Zomato’s bottomline.

Eternal will spread the cover on the troubled core of the business, while also bringing in subsidiaries like Blinkit, the quick commerce venture, and going-out app District under it.

Mark Zuckerberg thought much in the same line when he brought in Meta that covered embattled social media giant Facebook and his investment in Metaverse, although Larry Page adopted Alphabet to separate Google search engine from his other ventures, and Steve Jobs dropped Computers from Apple only to indicate his interest in a wider gamut of products. But it was perhaps Elon Musk’s simple affinity for the letter X that had unseated Twitter.

What played behind the rechristening of the Brand Zomato within two months of featuring in the big league of top 30 public companies? There could be apprehension of a broad-based slowdown in the sector triggered by sluggish consumption that hasn’t spared its arch-rival Swiggy, too.

A sustained deceleration in food delivery through the last two quarters drove Zomato’s profit down 57% on-year to INR 59 Cr, while its gross order value (GOV), which grew 17% over last year to INR 9,690 crore, recorded a meagre 2.3% rise sequentially. For Swiggy, the losses widened to INR 799 Cr in Q3 of this fiscal from INR 574 Cr a year earlier. Its stock price skidded below the issue price on February 6 after the company announced its quarterly results.

An image makeover seemed to be the only way for Goyal and his team in the face of this changing market dynamics.

The broader management commentary from Swiggy and Zomato, which together command more than 90% share in the food delivery sector in India, was that there “was a broad-based consumption slowdown in urban India” that led to the tapered demand. The Union Budget for FY26 offered some optimism for the sector. A higher threshold for taxable income at INR 12 Lakh per year fuelled hope of a boost to discretionary spending and a consequent revival in demand.

Userbase, Order Value Degrowth Spoils The Broth

What leaves a bitter taste in the mouth for the food delivery giants is an incremental growth in their gross order value (GOV) and monthly transacting users (MTU). The last two quarters have indicated that the platforms struggled with marginal rise in the two most vital metrics for the segment even in a........

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