Synopsis
Zepto is preparing for IPO as India’s quick commerce market grows more competitive. Blinkit leads in scale and has recently moved closer to profitability, while Swiggy Instamart continues to expand but remains loss-making. All three players are racing for growth while working towards sustainable profits.Listen to this article in summarized format
Here's how the competitors measure up in the growing quick commerce market.
Scale
Blinkit's dark store network was at around 2,027 as of December 31, 2025, the largest of the three. The Gurugram-based quick commerce firm has set a target of 3,000 stores by March 2027, in what is the most aggressive scale-up for a large player in the space. Instamart's count stood at 1,034 in the same quarter, while ET reported on Monday that Zepto operates 1,100 dark stores currently.
In terms of the number of orders, Blinkit led with about 2.6 million orders a day in the December quarter, with Instamart trailing at 1.2 million in the same period. Zepto was at 2.4–2.5 million orders per day on average in the January-March period.
Financials
In the October-December 2025 quarter, Blinkit reported an adjusted Ebitda of Rs 4 crore compared with a loss of Rs 156 crore in the previous quarter, a landmark for the sector which has seen high cash burn as the competition gets more fierce.
Swiggy, however, saw its losses widen for the same period as its expenditure continued to rise due to Instamart-related costs. Instamart’s adjusted revenue grew 102% to Rs 1,038 crore, but losses rose to Rs 791 crore in Q3 FY26.
