Eternal Shares Melt 5% On Rising Heat from Competition, Weak Q4 Earnings

Shares of Zomato parent company—Eternal tanked 5% in early deals on May 2 as investor sentiment took a hit amid concerns over rising competition putting pressure on earnings growth.

In its post earnings call, the management of Eternal warned over heating competition in the industry which resulted in the company’s widened losses in the March quarter in an attempt to protect its market share.

The company’s net profit slumped 78% on year to Rs 39 crore in the March quarter, down from the Rs 175 crore that it reported in the same period a year ago. The bottomline also took a hit on a sequential basis, slipping below the Rs 59 crore that it earned in Q3.

However, revenue 64% year-on-year to Rs 5,833 crore in Q4, up from Rs 3,562 crore a year ago.

As for the company’s flagship food delivery business, adjusted revenue from Eternal’s grew 17.5% year-on-year to Rs 2,409 crore in Q4 FY25, however, it was largely flat on a quarter-on-quarter basis. The sequential performance of the business reflected the broader slowdown in food delivery demand.

The gross order value (GOV) for the business also softened sequentially, dipping 1.3% from Rs 9,913 crore in Q3 to Rs 9,778 crore in the March quarter. Meanwhile, the adjusted EBITDA margin saw a marginal sequential uptick from 4.3% to 4.4%.

Talking about the sluggish growth in the food delivery vertical, Eternal’s Group CEO Deepinder Goyal attributed the weakness to a combination of factors, such as a sluggish demand environment, temporary delivery partner shortages due to surging quick commerce demand, and increasing competition from quick commerce players offering packaged food, which has started to dent demand for restaurant-based deliveries.

As for the quick commerce business—Blinkit, EBITDA losses widened sharply to Rs 178 crore, up significantly from the Rs 3 crore loss reported at the beginning of FY25. The company took notice of the weakness and stated that competitive pressures are expected to escalate further in the near term, while affirming that it will prioritise aggressive market share expansion over short-term profitability.

During the quarter, Blinkit also added a net 294 new stores, taking its total store count to 1,301.