The wholesale arm of online grocer BigBasket more than doubled its turnover to Rs 1,176 crore in FY17 from Rs 563 crore in the last fiscal, as per documents with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs sourced through data-tracking platform Tofler.
BigBasket has two registered operating entities. Supermarket Grocery Supplies is the B2B entity which sources products and sells it to Innovative Retail, which runs the online grocery portal.
This is probably why Innovative Retail’s revenues almost align with the other entity’s. Innovative Retail also reported doubling of revenues from Rs 527 crore in FY16 to Rs 1,090 crore in FY17. BigBasket did not respond to queries sent by ET.
The company recently closed a $300-million round led by Alibaba and CEO Hari Menon expects to grow further with the infusion of capital. Menon had said last month that BigBasket is at a 200 crore monthly gross merchandise value run rate, which he expects will surge to Rs 300 crore by August and Rs 500 crore by March 2019.
ET had reported last month that Big Basket will be integrated into Alibaba-backed Paytm Mall’s platform to boost further growth in the grocery segment.
BigBasket competes with the likes of Grofers, which recently raised Rs 400 crore in a round led by Japan’s SoftBank.
Online grocery penetration in India is a paltry 1% but is growing at a high momentum of 55-60% — making it an attractive sector for other online retail players like Flipkart and Amazon who have recently forayed into online grocery.
