Eternal shares erase early losses, trade over 1% higher post-Q4 results: Key highlights to take a look at

Last seen, the stock was trading at ₹235.75 on the BSE, up 1.40%. In the opening deals, the stock slipped over 4% to ₹223.05.

The company shared an important update on May 1, saying that starting Q4 FY25, it is reporting net order value, or NOV (in addition to GOV), for its B2C businesses (food delivery, quick commerce, and going-out).

NOV = GOV minus discounts

Discounts include discounts funded by us (the platform) or by our partners (brands, sellers, restaurants, among others).

GOV stands for gross order value. It represents the total value of all orders placed on the Zomato platform. This includes the value of food items, taxes, delivery charges, discounts, and any other charges associated with the order, but excludes tips.

• The company on Thursday, May 1, reported a consolidated net profit of ₹39 crore for the fourth quarter ended March. The company, which rebranded itself from Zomato to Eternal in March, had reported a net profit of ₹175 crore in the year-ago period.

In a regulatory filing, the company said the results for the quarter under review and the year ended March 31, 2025, along with the December-end quarter, are not comparable with other periods.

• Eternal's revenue from operations in the quarter under review stood at ₹5,833 crore against ₹3,562 crore logged a year ago, the filing showed.

• During the quarter under review, Eternal's total expense stood at ₹6,104 crore. It was ₹3,636 crore in the year-ago period.

• In its letter to shareholders, Eternal said it was shutting down Zomato Quick and Everyday businesses as it is not seeing a path to profitability without compromising on customer experience.

It also observed that the current restaurant density and kitchen infrastructure are not set up for delivering orders in 10 minutes, leading to an inconsistent customer experience.

• During Q4 FY25, Eternal's food delivery platform Zomato de-listed nearly 19,000 restaurants, which either did not pass muster on hygiene standards based on severe customer escalations, were mimicking established brands and misleading customers, or operating multiple identical menu listings to hog more listing impressions.

• Eternal Chief Financial Officer Akshant Goyal stated that on the profitability front, consolidated Adjusted EBITDA declined 15% year-on-year (YoY) to ₹165 crore in Q4 FY25, largely on account of the accelerated investments in expanding its quick commerce store network, which was partly offset by the improvement in food delivery Adjusted EBITDA margin.

• Blinkit CEO Albinder Dhindsa delved into the reasons behind the quick commerce business, witnessing a widening of the Adjusted EBITDA losses on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

"As mentioned in our last shareholders' letter, the increase in losses was expected and in line with our plan to pull forward the expansion of our store network. We added 294 net new stores in Q4 FY25, making our highest-ever net store addition in a single quarter.

"As a result, nearly 40 per cent of our overall network of 1,301 stores are under-utilised stores, opened in the last two quarters alone (216 in Q3 FY25 and 294 in Q4 FY25). We also added 1 million sq ft of new warehousing space to support the store expansion," Albinder said.

Despite that, the contribution margin (which includes all expansion costs except capex) increased from 3.8% to 3.9% of NOV.

"Below contribution, we increased our investment in marketing to meaningfully accelerate our pace of new customer acquisition. As an outcome, average monthly transacting customers increased to 13.7 million in Q4 FY25 (up from 10.6 million in Q3 FY25)," the company said.

Margin expansion, especially in the more mature parts of our network, could have been higher if not for the heightened competitive intensity.

• As regards current slowdown in food delivery, Eternal founder Deepinder Goyal said that growth does remain below expectations for now, attributing it to the sluggish demand environment (especially on discretionary spending), shortage (temporary) of delivery partners due to the rapid expansion of the industry and competition from quick delivery of packaged food from other platforms, leading to drop in demand for food delivery from restaurants.

"Overall, however, we don't see any long-term structural reason for this slowdown, as the fundamentals – low penetration of restaurant food and increasing urbanisation and per capita income in India – remain unchanged," Goyal added.

• "In Q4FY25, about one-third of the going-out GOV was transacted through the District App. We expect to complete the full transition in the next couple of quarters, post which we will make our going-out offering accessible only on the District app," he added.

The Eternal CFO said he expects that competition (in the quick commerce space) is going to intensify further from here in the near term.

"This is the largest consumption category in the country, and beyond just the early quick commerce players, we will continue to see competition from next-day delivery companies as they invest more in faster deliveries, especially in non-grocery categories. While this does not change our long-term optimism for the business, we think we will see sustained competitive intensity in the near term," he stated.