Get full access to one story every week, and to summaries of all other stories. Just create a free account

It’s lunchtime at Aranyas, a popular eatery in Dhanbad, the coal-rich city in Jharkhand. But while just a few tables are occupied, orders are still being punched in and flying out, courtesy the swarm of delivery personnel. Clad in either crimson or orange, they wait impatiently at the service counter.

Across the city—at traffic signals and outside the many residential townships—the procession of crimson and orange never ends. This is a marked change for Dhanbad, a city that, until recently, frowned upon eating out, forget ordering in. And with food delivery becoming the new norm, many small, unglamorous, delivery-only dhabas have mushroomed.

In Patna, the capital of neighbouring Bihar, this scene repeats. This, too, is a relatively recent phenomenon. As recently as the summer of 2018, food delivery wasn’t this common in eastern India, with Kolkata being the exception.

But it isn’t just eastern India. Cities such as Kanpur, Kota and Thrissur tell a similar story. Of the blitzscaling by Zomato and Swiggy, the two biggest players in India’s food tech space. While Swiggy has expanded its food delivery business to 145 cities (as of 7 May) from a modest 8 cities in October 2017, Zomato is now delivering food in nearly 250 cities, up from 17 cities less than a year ago.

As the two food tech giants expand, they’re finding happy hunting grounds further afield from India’s large metros. Kota, for example, with a population of around one million, is one of the fastest emerging cities for both companies. Largely due to its student population. Ditto for Manipal, says Swiggy COO Vivek Sunder. Bengaluru-headquartered Swiggy has dominated the south since it began operations in 2014.

Smaller cities that actually have many youngsters who are digitally savvy are doing extremely well.

— VIVEK SUNDER, COO, SWIGGY

In his blog declaring the annual report for the year ended March 2019, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal painted a similar picture: “…70% of our regular users in Kolhapur had never tried food delivery in their life (even over a phone call),” he wrote. Gurugram-based Zomato, which started deliveries in 2015, has always been king in the north.

With both companies fast expanding to cover every Indian city and town worth its salt in the country, it isn’t surprising that Goyal believes food delivery in India will overtake e-commerce soon. But as the tentacles of the two food tech juggernauts continue their unceasing reach, encroaching on each other’s turf is inevitable. Each has its own approach it believes will give it an edge. But who will upstage the other?

Thinning the field

Even as the Indian food delivery space expanded over the last half-decade, it has simultaneously consolidated. According to a 2016 Bloomberg report, more than 400 Indian food delivery apps started between 2013 and 2016.

AUTHOR

Pradip Kumar Saha

Pradip has been a journalist for close to 12 years. In his previous stint at financial newspaper Mint, which lasted over a decade, he switched to reporting from desk and wrote on a variety of subjects, including sports, food, whiskies and all things luxury. Born and raised in Patna, Pradip has a diploma in journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication. He is interested in good stories across beats. When not pursuing a story, he divides his time between food, tea, whisky, watches, Ghalib and Gulzar, in no particular order. At The Ken he writes weekend features and also covers companies like Uber, OYO, Zomato and Delhivery.

View Full Profile

Subscribe to read this story

The Ken is the only business subscription you need. Questions?

 

Premium

  • 5 original and reported longform business stories every week
  • Access to ONLY India edition
  • Close to 250 exclusive stories every year
  • Full access to over 6 years of paywalled stories
  • Pick up to 5 premium subscriber newsletters
  • 4 original and reported longform business stories each week
  • Access to ONLY Southeast Asia edition
  • Close to 200 exclusive stories every year
  • Full access to all paywalled stories since March 2020
  • Pick up to 5 premium subscriber newsletters

Rs. 2,750 /year

$ 120 /year

India Edition
Subscribe Subscribe
Most Asked For

Borderless

  • 8 original and reported longform business stories each week
  • Access to both India and Southeast Asia editions
  • Close to 400 exclusive stories every year
  • Full access to over 6 years of paywalled stories across India and Southeast Asia
  • Unlimited access to all premium subscriber newsletters
  • Visual Stories

Rs. 4,200 /year

Subscribe
 

Echelon

  • 8 original and reported longform business stories each week
  • Access to both India and Southeast Asia editions
  • Close to 400 exclusive stories every year
  • Full access to over 6 years of paywalled stories across India and Southeast Asia
  • Unlimited access to all premium subscriber newsletters
  • Visual Stories
  • Bonus annual gift subscription
  • Priority access to all new products and features

Rs. 8,474 /year

Subscribe
Or

Questions?

What kind of subscription plans do you offer?

We have three types of subscriptions
- Premium which gives you access to either the India or the Southeast Asia edition.
- Borderless which gives you complete access to The Ken across both editions
- Echelon which gives you complete access to The Ken across both editions along with a bonus gift subscription

What do I get if I subscribe?

The Premium edition gives you access to stories in that edition along with any five subscriber-only newsletters of your choice.

The Borderless and Echelon subscription gives you complete access to The Ken across editions and unlimited access to as many newsletters as you like.

What topics do you usually write about?

We publish sharp, original and reported stories on technology, business and healthcare. Our stories are forward-looking, analytical and directional — supported by data, visualisations and infographics. We use language and narrative that is accessible to even lay readers. And we optimise for quality over quantity, every single time.

Our specialised subscriber-only newsletters are written by our expert, award-winning journalists and cover a range of topics across finance, retail, clean energy, cryptocurrency, ed-tech and many more.

How many newsletters do you have?

We are constantly adding specialised subscriber-only newsletters all the time. All of these are written by our team of award-winning journalists on a specialised topic.

You can see the list of newsletters that we publish over here.

Does a Premium subscription to your Indian edition get me access to the Southeast Asia edition? Or vice-versa?

Afraid not. Each edition is separate with its own subscription plan. The India edition publishes stories focused on India. The Southeast Asia edition is focused on Southeast Asia. We may occasionally cross-publish stories from one edition to the other.

We recommend the Borderless or the Echelon Plan which will give you access to stories across both editions.

Do you have a mobile app?

Yes! We have a top-rated mobile app on both iOS and Android which allows you to read on-the-go and has some amazing features like the ability to bookmark stories, save on your device, dark mode, and much more. It’s really the best way to read The Ken.

Is there a free trial?

You can sign up for a free account to experience The Ken and understand our products better. We’ll send you some free stories and newsletters occasionally, and you can access our archive of previously published free stories. You can stay on the free account as long as you’d like.

The vast majority of our stories, articles and newsletters can be accessed only by a paid subscription.

Do you offer any discounts?

Sorry, no. Our journalism is funded completely by our subscribers. We believe that quality journalism comes at a price, and readers trust and pay us so that we can remain independent.

Do you offer refunds?

No. We allow you to sample our journalism for free before signing up, and after you do, we stand by its quality. But we do not offer refunds.

I am facing some trouble purchasing a subscription. What can I do?

Just write to us at [email protected] with details. We’ll help you out.

I have a few more questions. How can I reach out to you?

Sure. Just email us at [email protected] or follow us on Twitter.