Eternal shifts Blinkit strategy from market share to returns as profitability improves
Eternal is prioritising retention, supply-chain efficiency and higher returns over discount-led share gains. Blinkit’s June-quarter adjusted EBITDA rose to Rs 102 crore from Rs 37 crore sequentially, while food delivery delivered Rs 606 crore in adjusted EBITDA. Jefferies raised its target price to Rs 415.
What happened
Jefferies retained Buy on Eternal and raised its target price to Rs 415 after improved Blinkit profitability and strong food-delivery margins. Eternal is
Key facts
- Jefferies target price: Rs 415, raised from Rs 400; implied upside about 45%
- Blinkit quick-commerce NOV: Rs 17,132 crore, up 19% QoQ
- Blinkit monthly transacting users: 31.8 million, from 27.2 million QoQ
- Blinkit orders: 331 million, up 21% QoQ
- Blinkit adjusted EBITDA: Rs 102 crore, from Rs 37 crore QoQ; 0.6% of NOV
- Blinkit contribution: Rs 907 crore; contribution margin 5.3%
- Blinkit inventory losses: about 1.8% of NOV
- Food-delivery NOV: Rs 10,769 crore, up 20% YoY
- Food-delivery monthly transacting users: 27.2 million, from 22.9 million YoY
- Food-delivery orders: 285 million, up 22% YoY
- Food-delivery average order value: Rs 461
- Food-delivery take rate: 32.8%, from 32.0% QoQ
- Food-delivery adjusted EBITDA: Rs 606 crore, up 34% YoY; margin 5.6% of NOV
- Food-delivery contribution margin: 10.2%
- Going-out NOV growth: 60% YoY
- Hyperpure like-for-like revenue growth: 27% YoY; adjusted EBITDA Rs 6 crore
- Jefferies raised FY27-FY29 adjusted EBITDA estimates by 2%-5%
- Blinkit ROCE target: over 40%
Why this matters
With Blinkit’s economics improving, Eternal is better positioned to pursue selective capability deals or partnerships that deepen logistics, assortment and customer retention rather than buying growth.
What to watch
- Blinkit NOV growth versus adjusted EBITDA margin; sustained improvement above the reported 0.6% would validate operating leverage.
- Dark-store count growth, maturity curves and any indication that new-store losses are rising.
- Order frequency, average order value, customer retention and discount intensity after the strategy shift.
- Competitive pricing, delivery-fee changes, free-delivery membership offers and dark-store expansion by Zepto and Swiggy Instamart.
- Advertising and private-label revenue growth, which would reduce dependence on delivery-fee and product-margin economics.
- Management commentary on ROCE trajectory, capex discipline and the balance between market-share growth and profitability.
- Concentrate dark-store additions in mature, high-density catchments where delivery economics and repeat rates are proven.
- Use customer-level promotions rather than broad discounting, prioritizing retention of high-frequency and high-basket users.
- Increase contribution from advertising, private labels, seller-funded promotions and higher-margin convenience categories.
- Tighten assortment, procurement and inventory forecasting to reduce wastage, stock-outs and last-mile cost per order.
- Allocate incremental capital based on store-level ROCE, using food-delivery cash generation to fund only economically viable quick-commerce expansion.