Food delivery platform Zomato on Thursday confirmed the reports of increase in its platform fee to Rs 10 ahead of the festive season, and said that the same is not a rumor. The company stated that the fee hike is a routine business matter and is done from time to time.
In a regulatory filing, Zomato said, “At the outset, we would like to state that this is not a rumor, as the source of information mentioned in the article is the Zomato mobile application itself which is public and available for everyone to see and check. We have indeed increased the platform fee yesterday across certain cities. Such changes in our platform fee are a routine business matter and are done from time to time and may vary from city to city.”
Zomato had first introduced a platform fee in August 2023, charging Rs 2 per order, which was raised to Rs 4 by January 2024. With the latest hike, it now charges a fee of Rs 10 per order and this applies to all customers, including Gold members, and is over and above other charges associated with orders, such as GST, delivery fees, and restaurant charges.
Following this, Swiggy too hiked its platform fee to Rs 10 per order. While the Zomato app says that the fee is temporary and is taken to ‘maintain services during the festive rush’, Swiggy’s fee hike seems permanent as it does not give any notification on its app.
This comes a day after Zomato released its Q2 earnings with a profit surge of 388.9 per cent during the quarter at Rs 176 crore. It had recorded revenue from operations at Rs 4799 crore, up 68.5 per cent as against Rs 2848 crore during the same period of FY24.
Earlier in August, per the company’s annual report, Zomato had collected Rs 83 crore from platform fee by March. The platform fee is a key driver behind Zomato’s 27 per cent year-on-year revenue growth, reaching Rs 7,792 crore in FY24.
From: financialexpress
Financial News
