One-year-old Swiggy Bolt sees wide adoption as it aces the 10-minute hunger games

New Delhi: A year after launch, Bolt is emerging as Swiggy’s fastest-scaling bet. The 10-15 minute food delivery service has expanded to 700 cities—up from 500 in May—with 20% of restaurants listed on Swiggy now registered on Bolt as consumers warm up to 10-12 minute delivery for their coffee and samosa.

Bolt contributes over 10% to the overall orders for the food-delivery platform, with the share expected to further rise as availability improves, Rohit Kapoor, cheif executive officer of Swiggy Food Marketplace told Mint in an interview.

While the company did not give growth projections for Bolt, Kapoor maintained an 18-20% growth guidance for the overall food delivery business.

“When consumers realize they can get a coffee or a biryani in 10 minutes, they come back. And once restaurants see the demand, they start curating menus specifically for it. That’s a unique advantage we have,” he added. Swiggy has presence in 718 cities.

Kapoor said more restaurants are tweaking their offerings for Bolt. “It does not consume any significant cash from our side. Each order on Bolt is profitable. It’s good for frequency and good for uptake,” he said. “It’s 100% platform-driven — everything comes from outside kitchens.”

In the September quarter, Swiggy’s food delivery business reported an 19% year-on-year growth in gross order value (GOV) to ₹8,542 crore, while its users grew 22% 17.2 million.

In anticipation of demand

Bolt was launched in October 2024, anticipating demand for quicker deliveries that have surged due to the rapid adoption of quick-commerce platforms. Consumers now seek faster delivery across food and fashion.

Quick-commerce player Zepto offers swift deliveries of tea, coffee and snacks through Zepto Café, which has scaled back operations recently, citing weak demand and the need to allocate resources toward its core business.

Eternal (formerly Zomato) launched Bistro, under its quick-commerce platform Blinkit last year to offer snacks, meals and beverages delivered in 10 minutes. It also wound down experiments for quick deliveries on its core food-ordering app to focus on Bistro.

In May, Swiggy said the demand for Bolt had surged across metros as well as in tier-2 and tier-3 towns. It had a network of 45,000 restaurants offering quick deliveries for burgers, poha, samosa, and other food items.

Kapoor did not share the updated number of restaurants offering the service.

“Cities are well-covered, and we are focusing on higher use cases for our customers and greater availability of Bolt services. Whenever we show volumes to our restaurant partners and there is demand, they are able to curate menus for Bolt very fast,” he said.

Amid growth

The numbers come as India’s food services industry is set to surpass $120-125 billion by 2030, marking around 60% absolute growth from $78 billion in 2025, per estimates by Kearney.

On the regulatory front, Kapoor said the company welcomes the country's new labour rules announced last week. Under the recently announced Code on Social Security, 2020, platforms must contribute 1-2% of annual turnover, capped at 5% of payouts to gig workers, to a dedicated welfare fund.

In a filing to the exchanges on 22 November, the food aggregator said that based on available information, it does not anticipate any material impact of the social security norms on its business sustainability, cost structure, or long-term financial performance.

“Overall, it provides clarity and structure for an industry that is not a small part of the economy anymore. The guiding framework was very much needed. It’s good to have a structure coming in from a central place," Kapoor said. "We’re awaiting the finer details, so we don’t know the exact impact yet, but structurally it’s a positive development.”

On Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, Kapoor said the aggregator was studying the matter. The DPDP Act will have a bearing on e-commerce platforms, especially in how they harvest customer data. “We don’t have a comment yet; we will comply anyway. We will be ready for it. We’ve been studying it and getting a sense of it,” the CEO said.