Research Giant Morgan Stanley Values Zomato at $2.5 Billion

Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley’s research unit has pegged Zomato’s valuation at $2.5 billion in a report released last Thursday.

This is almost three times its valuation from its last funding round. The coverage on Zomato by the international brokerage firm was done while taking stock of the startup's publicly traded shareholder InfoEdge, which runs portals like Naukri.com and 99acres.com.

The online food delivery space has seen a resurgence after a few tough years on the back of user numbers growing rapidly and new players like UberEats and Ola, with its Foodpanda acquisition, jumping in to get a slice of the market. 

“Zomato will emerge as one of the most exciting startups from India in the medium to long term – and in the process, create substantial value for Info Edge shareholders. We have lowered our consolidated earnings estimates for financial year 2019 and 2020 as we incorporate deeper losses in the near term – but believe Zomato could be a multi-billion-dollar opportunity," shared the report.

The Morgan Stanley report pointed out that India's food delivery and takeaway market is about $19 billion including the unorganized segment and online penetration which is low at just about 5 per cent.

Globally, markets like the US, the UK, and Spain have seen online penetration rates go up as high as 45 per cent- 50 per cent. 

Zomato is expected to clock 34 million food delivery orders in India in the financial year 2018 up from about 11 million in the previous year. The share of deliveries by Zomato's own fleet is expected to rise to 20 per cent during the same period from 7 per cent a year ago. The report estimated revenue of $25 million from the overall food delivery business in financial year 2018.