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Food portals, which connect hungry folks to local takeaways and delivery services, witnessed over 150 per cent growth in orders last year.
Players such as JustEat.com, FoodPanda.com, Yummybay.com and TastyKhana.com attribute this huge growth to at least three factors — increased internet penetration, rise in smartphone usage and the continued economic slowdown that forces restaurants to start delivery options.
As eating out has become an expensive affair in the past three years, consumers are trying to satiate their taste-buds by ordering over the phone, point out these portals. They feature location-specific listing of restaurants on their sites and help the consumers check out menus (along with special offers) and place orders.
Turning mobile Ritesh Dwivedy, founder of JustEat.in, says the market is shifting towards mobile. Further, the increase in Internet penetration in India and the availability of more payment options have boosted the e-commerce industry. While mobile orders for JustEat.in have gone up from a mere 3 per cent last year to 30 percent this year, FoodPanda has witnessed a 60-70 per cent month-on-month increase in mobile orders. Ditto for TastyKhana. The portals feel the mobile to web orders will be at 50:50 by 2015.
As footfalls at restaurants drop amid the slowdown and other issues such as traffic problems, the food delivery market in India is expanding.
The business, which stood at ₹1,000 crore in 2012, is set to touch ₹6,000 crore by 2017. “We are targeting to capture 8-10 per cent of that market by 2017. With the rise in usage of smartphones among Indian consumers, more people are finding online ordering via mobile and apps more easy and convenient,” says Rohit Chhada, Founder, Foodpanda.com. Shachin Bharadwaj, CEO and founder at TastyKhana.in, says online ordering of food in smaller towns is also picking up as slowdown, rising food inflation, increased taxes and real-estate costs in metros have forced quick service restaurants to enter small towns.
Enter small towns Adds JustEat’s Dwivedy: “Restaurants are witnessing stagnation of growth in metros due to slowdown and plethora of choices. But in small towns, while people have more disposable incomes, there is a lack of choice. So, more restaurants want to set base in these cities. Going by e-commerce trends, we are expecting a shift of focus from tier 1 cities, and restaurants gaining more traction in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, by the end of 2015.”
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