Zepto Matches Swiggy’s Employee Salaries Despite Having Much Lesser Headcount

IPO-bound quick commerce platform Zepto has disbursed Rs 95 crore for April salaries of its 3,000 workforce, according to a report published by MoneyControl. This figure is slightly lower than the previous salary pay out of Rs 120 crore, however, it is almost 80% of what rival Swiggy pays out to its employees despite being a much larger organisation than Zepto, the report said.

Swiggy has around 5,500 employees working across multiple verticals, including quick commerce, food delivery, dining, events, and more. Still, it had a wage bill of Rs 120-130 crore in the same period.

In contrast, Zepto --- a newbie and much smaller platform --- is disbursing the similar salary pay out. It also stated that Zepto often offers salaries around two times higher than the industry average to attract top-tier talent in its business.

On the other hand, Zomato's parent Eternal has a workforce of more than 5,000 employees but it incurs monthly salary expenses of Rs 160-170 crore. Zomato is also doing more business than Zepto.

Zomato reported an annualised gross order value (GOV) of over $9.5 billion, while its Bengaluru-based rival Swiggy recorded a GOV of over $6 billion. In comparison, Zepto co-founder Aadit Palicha recently stated that the company has reached a GOV milestone of $5 billion.

Zepto's Growth Figures

CEO Aadit Palicha had earlier announced that the quick commerce platform is getting close to $4 billion in Annualised gross order value (GOV).

The current annualised GOV figure represents a sharp 300% year-on-year growth and a 30% rise since January. Palicha also revealed that the start-up has reduced its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda), excluding employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), and operating cash flow (OCF) burn by 50%.

“We are confident in being within touching distance of EBITDA (excl. ESOPs) and OCF break even within a few months (with a large net cash buffer still on the Balance Sheet). Our newly launched dark stores continue to track towards EBITDA breakeven, just as the dark stores we launched over the last 3 years did in our previous store expansion cycles,” Palicha said.

Zepto’s definition of GOV includes the selling price of fruits and vegetables, in addition to other revenue streams like subscription fees and advertisements.