Zomato shares hit new low, fall below issue price

Shares of food delivery company Zomato plummeted over 6% to an all-time low ₹75.75 apiece on BSE in the intraday trade on Tuesday. This was marginally lower than its issue price of ₹76.

Shares of the food ordering firm have tanked over 55% from its all-time high of ₹169.10 touched on November 16, 2021.

The homegrown food delivery major had a blockbuster listing in July last year when it ended up with a valuation of $14 billion (or more than ₹1 lakh crore). With its ₹9,375-crore issue, Zomato was the maiden multibillion-dollar consumer tech startup to be listed on the stock exchange.

At its IPO price, the stock was valued at a market capitalisation-to-sales ratio of 29.9x to its FY21 sales of ₹1,994 crore.

Shares of the food delivery app have been falling after the company posted its December quarter results last week.

While Zomato narrowed its net loss to ₹63.2 crore in the third quarter on account of a one-time gain of ₹315.8 crore from the sale of sports facilities provider Fitso to Curefit, brokerages have flagged its tepid gross order value growth.

Average order value -- which includes customer delivery charges -- shrunk by around 3% quarter-on-quarter, mostly on account of reduction in customer delivery charges, the company said.

Zomato's average monthly transacting users also declined to 15.3 million in the December quarter from 15.5 million in the previous quarter.

The company's consolidated revenue from operations during the quarter grew around 9% sequentially to ₹1,112 crore as against ₹1,024 crore in the previous quarter. Revenue in the quarter ended December 2020 was at ₹609 crore.

In the ongoing quarter, Zomato made two additional minority equity investments in UrbanPiper ($5 million) and Adonmo ($15 million).

Zomato had said it is currently well capitalised with $1.7 billion cash on its balance sheet, and doesn’t envisage raising cash in the foreseeable future.

The company will enhance the upper limit of its potential investments in the quick commerce market to $400 million over the next two years, Zomato had said. The food delivery major has invested around $225 million in the past year across three companies - Blinkit (formerly Grofers), Shiprocket and Magicpin.

Rival Swiggy too has earmarked investments worth $700 million for its express grocery delivery service Instamart. Last month, Swiggy had raised $700 million in funding, joining the 'decacorn club' – privately-held companies valued at $10 billion or more.