According to Storyboard18's November 2025 report, Swiggy's Q2 FY26 loss widened to ₹1,092 crore from ₹626 crore, while Zomato's profit fell 63% to ₹65 crore. It points to low or waived delivery fees, average orders of ₹220–230 and a fragmented restaurant market, and NRAI's Pranav Rungta warns profits may stay out of reach without lasting pricing power and restaurant consolidation.
Two survivors, still not comfortably profitable
Storyboard18 reported on Zomato and Swiggy's Q2 FY26 results in November 2025, roughly ten years into India's food delivery business. Over that time more than five rivals have left the market, among them TinyOwl, Foodpanda, Amazon Food and Uber Eats. Zomato and Swiggy are what remain, sharing a food delivery market that Storyboard18 values at $45.15 billion in a split of about 58% to 42%. Staying alive, though, has not fixed the economics.
The Q2 FY26 results
- Swiggy's quarterly loss grew to ₹1,092 crore, against ₹626 crore a year before.
- Zomato's profit dropped 63%, to ₹65 crore.
- Eternal, Zomato's parent company, shut down Zomato Quick, its very fast delivery trial, six months after launching it.
Both companies make money in four ways: commission from restaurants, delivery fees, platform fees and advertising inside the app. Even with all four in play, neither posted a comfortable profit in the quarter.
Food delivery is operationally intense.
Pranav M Rungta, NRAI, quoted by Storyboard18
Rungta sits on the managing committee of NRAI, the restaurant industry body. He explained that the business needs huge rider fleets and wide restaurant networks, and that as a fairly young sector it sees more failures than successes. His point is that the problem is built into the model, not a single bad quarter.
Why the numbers look different in India
One reason is how little the customer pays for delivery. Storyboard18 puts the charge at about ₹12.50 per order on Zomato and about ₹15 on Swiggy. Rungta notes that around 70% of orders on both apps carry no delivery fee at all, thanks to subscriptions such as Swiggy One and Zomato Gold.
Rungta said the platforms were 'masking delivery fees' to get customers into the habit of ordering. The expectation is that once people order often, fees can be brought in or raised more openly. Small baskets add to the strain: the average Indian order is ₹220–230, well below the typical order size in more developed delivery markets.
Why the platforms hold pricing power over restaurants
Karan Taurani of Elara Capital, where he is an executive vice president, points to how the market is built. Only about one-third of food services in India is organised. The rest is made up of small independent eateries and local chains, and they have little leverage when a platform charges 15–30% commission on each order. That imbalance lets the two platforms set terms for restaurants even as they find it hard to do the same with customers.
Taurani's figures put EBITDA for most companies in the sector at 3–5% of gross order value, which works out to EBITDA margins of 8–14% at present. He expects those margins can widen further as income from platform fees and advertising grows.
On the Q2 call, Deepinder Goyal, Eternal's founder, recognised the same pressures: weak discretionary spending, quick commerce competing for the same customer's money, and unpredictable weather hitting order volumes. He added that the slowdown in net order value growth looks to have hit bottom and stopped getting worse.
The warning from the restaurant side
Rungta's conclusion is that until the platforms can hold prices up over time, and the restaurants they work with consolidate, real profitability 'may remain aspirational'. On Storyboard18's figures, neither market leader has solved this after a decade of scale.
What this means for your restaurant
- Do not plan on platform costs easing. Storyboard18's figures show neither leader comfortably profitable after ten years, and Rungta doubts that will change without firmer pricing and consolidation on the restaurant side.
- Expect the platforms to lean harder on fees and advertising. Taurani sees margins widening as platform fee and ad income grows, and delivery fees are being held down now to build a habit, leaving room to raise them once it sticks.
- Know where your bargaining position comes from. Storyboard18's sources link the platforms' leverage over restaurants to how fragmented the market is, with commission running at 15–30% per order.
- Keep growing the orders you control yourself, such as dine-in, regulars who come back and direct orders, rather than waiting for platform terms to improve.
Sources
- Food delivery profit still elusive after a decade; Zomato, Swiggy Q2 underscore challenge — Storyboard18
This article summarises the reporting and guides listed above; the figures belong to those sources and are attributed in the text. Check anything that affects your business against your own platform agreements, payout statements and advisers.