Swiggy flipped its focus to growth, says food biz CEO Rohit Kapoor

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Rohit Kapoor, chief executive of Swiggy's food delivery business, said he had shifted his focus back to growth over the past few months, instead of profitability, which is what he’d chased since joining the firm nearly a year ago. He said he doesn’t have the ‘luxury’ to choose between growth and profitability and is trying to balance both. Kapoor, who was the global chief marketing officer at Oyo before joining Swiggy last August, told ET that both growth and profitability are significant for Swiggy, and the food business can expand by around 20% annually.

He was also given the additional responsibility to head Swiggy's Dineout business about two months back. Last year, Swiggy bought Dineout from Times Internet--the digital arm of The Times Group--which also publishes The Economic Times. “When I came, 70% of our focus was on profitability and 30% on growth.

Now that has flipped, and a larger chunk of our focus is on growth as the food business has seen good profitability over the past few months”, Kapoor said. “Despite the macroeconomic challenges, Swiggy’s food delivery business has balanced both growth and profitability, hitting double-digit growth in gross order value in H2 of CY 2022”, he added. Swiggy founder and group CEO Sriharsha Majety said in May that the SoftBank-backed firm’s food delivery business had turned profitable in March 2023, including all corporate costs but excluding esops.

According to the recent annual report from Prosus — the largest investor in the company — Swiggy's losses in calendar year 2022 ballooned 80% from the previous year, to over $545 million. Prosus — the Dutch-listed arm of South African technology investor Naspers — owns 33% in the company. Prosus said its share of Swiggy’s