New Year celebrations saw a huge surge in orders on food and grocery delivery apps such as Zomato, Swiggy, and Blinkit. Deepinder Goyal, CEO of Zomato, revealed on his X.com (formerly Twitter) that the platform crossed the highest number of deliveries in a day.
Meanwhile, Swiggy saw over 1 million users active on the app every hour. The app delivered more orders per minute as compared to any other day in its history. Swiggy’s CEO Rohit Kapoor said that the event of the New Year saw 1.6x times more orders as compared to the Cricket World Cup Final between India and Australia on November 19, 2023.
The orders per minute (OPM) on Swiggy instamart is the highest we have seen so far. It’s surpassed our previous high during the WC Finals by 1.6x pic.twitter.com/DkZvNbque8
— Rohit Kapoor (@rohitisb) December 31, 2023
Zomato has also seen a huge spike in orders since Christmas. The trend took a new jump yesterday as the platform was delivering over 140 orders each second. Interestingly, Biryani was one of the most ordered food items on Zomato yesterday all over India.
As per Goyal’s post on Twitter, Zomato delivered more orders during the New Year Celebrations of 2023 as compared to orders made during NYE of 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined. These statistics not just reflect the success of the platform, but also reflect the changing habits of Indian users when it comes to using delivery apps for festive celebrations.
He further added that Zomato users tipped over Rs 98 lakhs to delivery partners in just one day. He also thanked users for their gesture.
However, Zomato was also reportedly taking advantage of the New Year Celebrations. A Twitter user claimed that Zomato charged Rs 9 as Platform Fees for an order worth Rs 279. The user said that despite being a Gold Member of Zomato, she was being overcharged in platform fees as compared to normal rates of Rs 3.
Zomato is using ₹9 platform fee today…!! 😐😐 pic.twitter.com/I80GcuUnAm
— Shubhangi sisodia (@_Shubhangiii_) December 31, 2023
While Zomato was seen more busy with food deliveries, Swiggy Instamart and Blinkit also received record-breaking orders for groceries. Zomato-owned Blinkit’s CEO Albinder Dhindsa reported that the company created multiple all-time high records across different categories.
The New Year Event saw the highest orders in a day, most soft drinks and chips sold in a day, and the highest number of tips in a single day. He further revealed that over 1.4 lakh packets of chips and 68K bottles of soda were ordered on Blinkit, even before 6 PM. Potato chips were the most ordered item on the platform.
Zomato and Swiggy have also been credited in the past for handling the order surge with ease during the IPL Final and Cricket World Cup Final of 2023, where both events clocked over 4 crore viewership.
