Food delivery and restaurant aggregation platform Zomato Ltd has decided to close most of its international operations including the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Singapore and now Lebanon. However, the company will continue to operate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but as a dining-out business and not food delivery one. Zomato is also pulling the plug on its direct-to-consumer (D2C) experiment in Nutraceuticals.
In a press release, the online food aggregator said, “We are also shutting down our operations in Lebanon, which is the only international business we were left with (other than dining-out business in UAE) after shutting down the rest of our international operations last year.”
The release mentioned that Zomato’s core food related businesses – food ordering and delivery, dining out and hyperpure (B2B supplies for restaurants) will remain its key value drivers for the next years. It noted that all the businesses Zomato is either divesting or shutting down contributed less than 1 per cent to its adjusted Revenue and 13 per cent to its adjusted EBITDA loss in Q2FY22.
The release stated that Zomato is also in talks with several restaurant point-of-sale (POS) players, e-vehicle fleet operators to evaluate investments. Zomato has also decided to back a platform play for all direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands by investing in Shiprocket.
The Gururam-headquartered company has identified three geographical segments as reportable segments, as per Zomato’s quarterly financial statements released on November 10.
The geographical segments comprise:
1) India
2) United Arab Emirates (UAE)
3) Rest of the World (ROW) (such as Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, USA, Lebanon, Turkey, Czech, Slovakia, Poland, Qatar, Ireland)
“Our mainstay food ordering and delivery business is an opportunity where we expect huge shareholder value creation going forward. We believe that the food delivery market in India is still nascent, and there is an opportunity to grow the market at least 10x over the next few years,” Zomato underscored. It added that the company is pumping in investments in ecosystem companies around its food delivery business so that the cost of improving its food delivery business.
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The release also said that it is currently in talks with several restaurant point-of-sale (POS) players, e-vehicle fleet operators to evaluate investments. The online food aggregator has also decided to back a platform play for all direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands by investing in Shiprocket.
