Even though Zomato has shut it down, its rival Swiggy is expanding its quick food delivery service to more cities in India. The company’s 10-minute food delivery service — called Bolt — has now been rolled out to over 500 cities. This development (disclosed on May 2) marks a substantial growth from its initial launch in October 2024, when Bolt was available in just 6 major cities.
Bolt is designed to deliver ready-to-eat meals within 10 minutes, focusing on dishes that require minimal preparation time. The service operates within a 2-kilometer radius, ensuring quick delivery times. Swiggy has partnered with over 45,000 restaurants, including major quick-service chains like KFC, McDonald’s, Subway, Faasos, Burger King, and Curefoods, to support this initiative.
Notably, this expansion of Bolt comes at a time when Swiggy’s prominent competitor, Zomato, has decided to discontinue its own quick-delivery service – Zomato Quick – citing operational challenges and a lack of profitability. By March 2025, ‘Quick’ accounted for around 8% of Zomato’s order volume. Interestingly, this was not Zomato’s first attempt at rapid delivery. In April 2022, the company launched ‘Zomato Instant,’ which promised 10-minute deliveries in select cities but was shut down by January 2023. More recently, ‘Zomato Everyday’ (a service offering homely meals) was also discontinued in May 2025 due to limited demand.
However, in contrast, Swiggy reports that Bolt now accounts for more than 10% of its total food delivery orders. Even according to the company, users acquired through Bolt show a 4-6% higher monthly retention rate compared to the platform’s average. Even at the start of this year, Swiggy launched SNACC, a new 15-minute food delivery app. The app promises to deliver quick snacks, beverages, and meals within 10 to 15 minutes. In March 2025, Instamart (Swiggy’s quick commerce platform) expanded to 100 cities across India, including 32 new markets.
Meanwhile, despite these expansions, the foodtech giant has now reportedly suspended its ‘Swiggy Genie’ service across several cities. Swiggy Genie, a pick-up and drop courier service for items like documents or parcels, had a presence in over 65 cities. The service is currently not visible on the Swiggy app in most locations, according to a report by Inc42.
All this is happening at a time when the food delivery company has witnessed a significant loss in Q3 of 2024-25. The company reported a sharp increase in its quarterly loss, amounting to ₹7.99 billion, compared to ₹5.74 billion in the same quarter of the previous year. This was attributed to heavy investments in its quick commerce service to compete with rivals like Zomato and Zepto.
In addition to this, Swiggy is also facing an antitrust investigation by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) over alleged deep discounting practices in its quick commerce platforms. The All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation filed the complaint in February 2025, arguing that these practices create unfair pricing models detrimental to smaller traditional retailers.
