Swiggy Super members placed 14 Mn orders in last 3 months of 2018

Value-added paid subscriptions have been gaining ground at a fast pace in foodtech segment. Zomato’s back to back success with Gold and Piggybank is testimony to the fact that Indian consumers don’t mind paying extra money for convenience and extra benefits rolled into an yearly or monthly subscriptions.

Launched in November 2017, Gold has over 7,00,000 subscribers while Piggybank’s subscriber base currently stands at 1.5 million.

Comparatively, Swiggy has rolled out its maiden subscription - Swiggy Super - a little late. In the second half of September 2018, it introduced Swiggy Super. It lets users avail unlimited free deliveries and dessert or beverage (only when ordered with select restaurants).

The Naspers-funded firm has revealed Super members placed 14 million (1.4 crore) orders without delivery charge in the last three and half months of 2018 (between Sep 21 and Dec 31).

In an email to subscribers, Swiggy said, “Delivery partners travelled 4.2 crore kms to deliver Super orders. It’s like travelling to the moon & back 54 times.”

Meanwhile, Super users placed 2.4 million (24 lakh) orders using exclusive payment offers and saved an average of Rs 200 every month. This essentially means that less than 20 per cent of overall orders by Super members preferred payment options with cashback.

Although the company doesn’t disclose the number of actual Swiggy Super members, it looks like the firm’s only subscription programme has been growing fast.

Of late, Zomato and Swiggy have been competing fiercely for dominance in online ordering. Industry estimates outline that together they burn about $80 million every month.

Recently, Zomato announced that it hit 28 million monthly order run rate. Swiggy said to be little ahead of the nearest rival as it processes 27-28 million orders every month (absolute orders not monthly run rate).

Besides competition for commanding maximum monthly order volume, Zomato and Swiggy will also jostle to drive usages of their subscriptions - Piggybank and Swiggy Super in 2019. It would be interesting to observe how they perform in the current calendar year.