Swiggy’s Phani Kishan Says Instamart Focus On Household Consumption Will Not Change

While the race in the quick commerce sector is at its prime, foodtech major Swiggy’s cofounder Phani Kishan Addepalli has reportedly said that Swiggy Instamart will not shift its focus on household consumption products and those with immediate use cases.

As per ET’s report, Addepalli was addressing the India Healthy Snacking Summit, which was organised by dry fruits and nuts company Farmley on Saturday in Delhi.

“The things we need a lot more urgently are in the grocery space. I think grocery is going to be quite important but we do see ourselves branching out into categories beyond groceries,” the report quoted Addepalli as saying.

He added, “I don’t know if we want to sell mobile phones… I know some of the other people (quick commerce firms) do but categories which are a lot more amenable to household consumption and immediate use cases, those are the things we’ll continue to (focus on).”

The report also highlighted comments from Zepto CEO Aadit Palicha from the same event stating, the biggest opportunity for quick commerce remains in groceries and household essentials.

India’s grocery and household essentials segment is projected to grow to $850 billion by 2028-29 from $650 billion, Palicha said, as per the report.

Quick commerce players including Swiggy Instamart, Zepto and Blinkit have been in the limelight for its expansion of products that are delivered on their portals over the past few months. 

These companies are competing with each other to include home appliances, beauty products, toys and games, and such betting on the swelling demand from consumers today. The hustling lifestyle of consumers has been one of the prime reasons behind the success of quick commerce players.

The food delivery major Swiggy merged its premium grocery vertical InsanelyGood with its quick commerce unit Instamart earlier this year.

After a brief shut down of its gourmet grocery delivery pilot ‘Handpicked’, Swiggy relaunched the service in Bengaluru in June. The offering has been relaunched as a new category under its quick commerce platform Swiggy Instamart.

As per the report, Addepalli acknowledged that there has been a “fundamental consumption increase” because of quick commerce in categories such as snacking and indulgent food items, and it is likely to extend to other product categories as well. Also, he noted that across product categories such as chips, ice creams and beverages, the consumption trend was changing.