Swiggy Q4 losses widen as Instamart slows growth, food delivery jumps

Bengaluru: Swiggy’s annual losses widened in the financial year ended March 2026 even as its food delivery business posted its fastest growth in nearly four years, while the company signalled a more calibrated approach in quick commerce amid intense competition and discount-led expansion across the sector.

The Bengaluru-based company reported a loss of Rs 4,154 crore for FY26, compared with Rs 3,117 crore a year earlier. Total income rose 51% to Rs 23,561 crore from Rs 15,623 crore in FY25.

For the March quarter, losses narrowed to Rs 800 crore from Rs 1,081 crore a year earlier and Rs 1,065 crore in the December quarter. Total income rose 47% year-on-year to Rs 6,649 crore.

Food delivery remained the company’s strongest-performing segment. Gross order value (GOV) in the business rose 22.6% year-on-year to Rs 9,005 crore during the quarter, marking a 15-quarter high in growth, while adjusted EBITDA grew 40% to Rs 297 crore. Margins improved to 3.3% of GOV from 2.9% a year earlier.

“Food delivery has grown at its strongest pace in nearly four years, crossing Rs 1,000 Cr in annual adjusted EBITDA and defying scepticism around a sector slowdown, with meaningfully better margins than a year ago,” Swiggy cofounder, managing director and group chief executive Sriharsha Majety said.

Executives said offerings such as Bolt, One BLCK and 99-store were helping drive growth through affordability and faster deliveries. The company also indicated that newer experiments such as “Toing,” targeted at low-frequency food delivery users, were still at an early stage.

Quick commerce arm Instamart, however, showed signs of moderation sequentially. GOV rose 68.8% year-on-year to Rs 7,881 crore, but declined marginally from Rs 7,938 crore in the December quarter. Net order value (NOV) grew 4% sequentially to Rs 5,675 crore.

Swiggy executives repeatedly stressed during the analyst call that the company would not pursue aggressive discounting-led expansion, even if it meant slower near-term growth.

“We are not going to take the route of buying growth,” Instamart chief executive Amitesh Jha said during the analyst call, adding that the company would continue investing only in areas that improve long-term consumer retention and differentiation.

Executives said Swiggy had consciously reduced incentives for low-order-value users and shifted focus toward higher-frequency customers. The company said it had “halved” the mix of low basket-size users over the last year, contributing to an improvement in unit economics and the NOV-to-GOV ratio. Swiggy also rolled back a no-fee campaign in January after testing user behaviour.

Majety said the company was prioritising building a “durable business” over chasing short-term market share gains in quick commerce. “If fighting for short term relevance means going after spending in places that will hurt us later, I think that will compromise our long term relevance,” he said during the analyst call.

Executives also added the current dark store network had enough utilisation headroom to support growth over the next few quarters without aggressive expansion. Swiggy added only seven dark stores during the quarter, taking the total to 1,143 stores across 129 cities.

The company said its quick commerce business could eventually scale to over Rs 1 lakh crore in net order value with 4-5% EBITDA margins, though executives cautioned that timelines would depend on how competition and market structure evolve.