SoftBank-backed Swiggy witnessed its expenses surge during FY22, which in turn widened its loss to match the overall growth of the food delivery giant during the same period. During the fiscal year ending March 2022, the foodtech platform saw its net loss jump by over two-fold to reach ₹3629 crores for the period, as compared to ₹1617 crores in the previous fiscal year.
This widening of Swiggy’s loss comes alongside a near-equal jump in the platform’s revenue from operations – FY22 saw its gross revenue clock a jump of 2.2 times to reach ₹5705 crores (as opposed to ₹2547 crores in FY21) – as per Swiggy’s annual financial statement with the Registrar of Companies (RoC). The platform reached the coveted decacorn status during the same period – after it gobbled up $700 million last year in a funding round that was led by Invesco and included the participation of new and existing investors alike.
Delving deeper into the composition of Swiggy’s gross revenue, we find that most of the revenue comes from Swiggy’s platform services (which it offers to various partner merchants). For FY22, Swiggy’s revenue from its platform services clocked a growth of 83.3% to reach ₹3444 crores. It is closely followed by revenue earned from the sale of grocery and FMCG products through Instamart, Swiggy’s instant grocery delivery service, and the platform’s two-year-old offering in the quickly growing (no pun intended) quick commerce sector.
Revenue from the sale saw a growth of nearly four times to reach ₹2036 crores for the period (an increase from ₹517 crores in FY21). It is followed by revenue generated from the sale of food from Swiggy’s own network of cloud kitchens (which includes Breakfast Express and The Bowl Company). The revenue from the vertical clocked a small growth of ₹5 crores to reach ₹88 crores in FY22.
Like the loss and gross revenue, Swiggy’s overall expenses witnessed a substantial growth in FY22 – clocking a growth of 131% from ₹4139 crores in FY21 to reach ₹9574 crores in the recently-ended fiscal year. 24.5% of the total expenses were attributed to outsourcing support costs – which rose to ₹2350 crores in FY22.
The cost of materials consumed jumped by four times to reach ₹2268 crores, while expenditure on advertisement and promotions rose to ₹1847 crores for the same period. Swiggy’s expenditure on employee benefits rose to ₹1708 crores, while expenses on communication and technology jumped to ₹330 crores. The expenses on employee benefits for the upcoming fiscal may drop, if Swiggy decides to continue the trend set by 2022 and lay off its employees this year, based on their performances.
