Zomato to cease US operations, sharpen focus on India

Gurugram headquartered food technology platform Zomato has said in a filing with the market regulators that it will be winding down the business of its step-down subsidiary Zomato USA LLC (ZUL).

The company said that the contribution of the business to Zomato’s turnover was nil.

This follows Zomato’s announcement ahead of going public where the founders said that the focus will remain on growing India business.

Zomato which has a presence in 23 countries said they will provide services such as restaurant search in these geographies.

The operations of ZUL have been discontinued from August 17 onwards and the entity’s contribution to net worth of Zomato stood at 0.07%, according to the filings.

The company’s market capitalisation crossed $13.3 billion after listing in the public markets.

Recently, Zomato also divested its stake in US-based restaurant table booking platform NexTable for $100,000. Earlier this month Zomato had also set up a new fintech payment entity called Zomato Payments Private Limited for payment aggregator and gateway services.

The company recently invested Rs 740 crore in on-demand grocery delivery service provider Grofers to enter the express delivery space for essentials, taking on rival Swiggy’s express grocery delivery service, Instamart.

For the first quarter of FY 2022, Zomato reported 37% sequential growth in gross order value at Rs 4,540 crore. The company reported 26% sequential growth in adjusted revenue for the period at Rs 1,160 crore.

 Zomato compared earnings sequentially due to severe impact of COVID-related lockdown on its earnings for the first quarter of FY 2021.