Segment Profits Rose, Corporate Costs Rose Faster
This is Zomato Limited's Q2 FY25 (quarter ended September 30, 2024), reviewed not audited, board-approved October 22, 2024 - the sixteenth quarter as a public company covered in this series. Unlike every prior quarter here, no presentation deck or earnings call transcript was filed alongside the regulatory result this time - the only source document available is the bare NSE XBRL numeric filing itself, without even the qualitative auditor's-review-report text that has carried this series' running GST and subsidiary-disclosure threads in every quarter since the FY24 year-end. That means no GOV», no Blinkit store count, no management-defined Adjusted Revenue or Adjusted EBITDA, and no read on whether the standing GST notice or subsidiary-audit-scope threads moved at all this quarter (see Beyond the Usual). What follows is built entirely from the tagged statutory numbers - which, on their own, tell a real and slightly awkward story.
Revenue from operations grew 14.1% QoQ to Rs. 4,799 crore ($572.7M), continuing the quarter-on-quarter growth streak. But consolidated profit before tax barely moved - Rs. 237 crore, against Rs. 239 crore last quarter - and net profit for the period actually fell 30.4% QoQ, to Rs. 176 crore from Rs. 253 crore. That's not because the underlying business slowed: total segment result (before unallocated corporate costs and finance costs) grew a healthy 11.9% QoQ, from Rs. 362 crore to Rs. 405 crore - every operating segment held or improved its result (see Segment Results). What ate the entire gain was two things happening below the segment line at once. Unallocated corporate costs jumped 40.8% QoQ, from Rs. 98 crore to Rs. 138 crore, and finance costs rose a further 20% (Rs. 25 crore to Rs. 30 crore) - together consuming more than the segment-level improvement outright. On top of that, the swing from last quarter's Rs. 14 crore net deferred-tax credit to this quarter's Rs. 61 crore real tax charge - a Rs. 75 crore turn - accounts for nearly all of the drop in net income by itself; profit before tax, the cleaner read on operating performance, was essentially flat.
None of that stopped the stock from having its biggest single-quarter move of the entire profitable streak. See Target Valuation Range for why a flat-PBT quarter paired with a 36% share-price jump is the more interesting story here, not less.
The Prescription
Get unallocated corporate costs back under control before they become the story every quarter. A 40.8% sequential jump in costs sitting outside any of the five reporting segments - on a company that already reports two-thirds of its cost base at the segment level - deserves its own line of accountability rather than disappearing into "corporate overhead." If this is genuinely one-off (a compensation true-up, a legal or professional-fee spike), management should say so explicitly next quarter; if it's a structural step-up in group-level cost as the business scales past five reporting lines, that's a trend worth flagging to shareholders directly rather than letting it show up only as an unexplained gap between segment-level and consolidated profit.
Stop letting a single filing carry this little disclosure. Every prior quarter in this series came with at least a presentation deck, and most came with an auditor's review report carrying the GST and subsidiary-scope threads this series has tracked since FY24. This quarter's public disclosure was the bare numeric statement alone - materially less than what shareholders have had access to in fifteen straight prior quarters. Whether that's a one-off gap in what's publicly available or a genuine step back in disclosure practice is worth knowing before drawing any conclusion about worsening transparency, but a reader following this company shouldn't have to guess which.
Key Financial Metrics
Q2 FY25 (quarter ended September 30, 2024, reviewed not audited) vs Q1 FY25 (quarter ended June 30, 2024) and Q2 FY24 (quarter ended September 30, 2023) - consolidated, reported in INR crore and USD (converted at approximately Rs. 83.80/$1 for Q2 FY25, Rs. 83.50/$1 for Q1 FY25, and Rs. 83.20/$1 for Q2 FY24)
| Metric | Q2 FY25 | Q1 FY25 | QoQ | Q2 FY24 | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue from Operations | ✅ Rs. 4,799 crore ($572.7M) | Rs. 4,206 crore ($503.7M) | ✅ +14.1% | Rs. 2,848 crore ($342.3M) | ✅ +68.5% |
| Operating Income (Profit before tax) | ⚠️ Rs. 237 crore ($28.3M) | Rs. 239 crore ($28.6M) | ⚠️ -0.8% | Rs. 21 crore ($2.5M) | ✅ +1,029% |
| Net Income (Profit for the period) | ⚠️ Rs. 176 crore ($21.0M) | Rs. 253 crore ($30.3M) | ⚠️ -30.4% | Rs. 36 crore ($4.3M) | ✅ +389% |
| Adjusted EBITDA (management non-GAAP) | Not disclosed this quarter - no presentation filed | +Rs. 299 crore ($35.8M) | n/a | +Rs. 41 crore ($4.9M)* | n/a |
| Free Cash Flow (quarter-only, derived) | ⚠️ ~Rs. 6 crore (~$0.7M) | +Rs. 54 crore ($6.5M) | ⚠️ -88.9% | Rs. 181 crore ($21.8M)* | ⚠️ -96.7% |
*Q2 FY24's Adjusted EBITDA and FCF figures, per the Q2 FY24 post, are management's own disclosed/derived figures from that quarter's deck; no equivalent management figure exists for Q2 FY25 since no deck was filed this quarter (see above).
Every metric in this table needs the same caveat: this quarter's cash-flow statement, like Q2 FY24's, was disclosed only on the half-year cumulative basis (April-September 2024), not quarter-only - a reversion from the natively quarter-only disclosures of the three prior quarters (Q3 FY24 through Q1 FY25). The derived Q2 FY25 figures above come from subtracting the previously-published Q1 FY25 quarter-only cash-flow numbers from this filing's H1 FY25 cumulative totals: operating cash flow of roughly Rs. 221 crore (Rs. 421 crore H1 less Rs. 200 crore Q1) less capex of roughly Rs. 215 crore (Rs. 361 crore H1 less Rs. 146 crore Q1), leaving free cash flow of only about Rs. 6 crore - a near-complete stall after two quarters of already-declining FCF (Rs. 87 crore, then Rs. 54 crore, now ~Rs. 6 crore), as the Blinkit store-rollout capex cycle keeps compounding faster than operating cash generation (see The Prescription). Depreciation and amortisation rose 20.8% QoQ to Rs. 180 crore and finance costs rose 20% to Rs. 30 crore, both consistent with a fast-growing, increasingly leased and financed store network. Consolidated cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet grew to Rs. 375 crore from Rs. 249 crore; adding other bank balances (Rs. 131 crore) and current and non-current investments (Rs. 1,375 crore and Rs. 10,333 crore) gives a statutory cash-plus-investments total of roughly Rs. 12,214 crore, in the same range as Q1 FY25's company-disclosed broader non-GAAP cash figure of Rs. 12,539 crore, though the two aren't calculated on an identical basis since this quarter's presentation-based non-GAAP figure isn't available.
Key Operational Metrics
No presentation deck was filed this quarter, and none of GOV, Blinkit store count, average monthly transacting customers, restaurant-partner counts, or contribution margin are tagged anywhere in the regulatory XBRL filing - these are genuinely not available this quarter, not omitted from this post. The only operational color available comes from the segment-level revenue and result figures below.
Segment Results
Zomato reports five business-line segments - India food ordering and delivery, Hyperpure (B2B restaurant supply), Quick commerce (Blinkit), Going-out (dining-out plus Zomato Live), and All other segments (residual). Segment result is operating profit/loss before unallocated corporate costs, other income, share-based payment expense, finance costs, and exceptional items. No segment assets/liabilities are tagged this quarter - the filing's own segment note states Ind AS 108 doesn't require this disclosure and the XBRL utility defaults every reportable segment's assets/liabilities to zero.
| Segment | Revenue (Q2 FY25) | QoQ | Segment Result (Q2 FY25) | Q1 FY25 Result | Margin (Q2 FY25) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| India food ordering and delivery | Rs. 2,012 crore ($240.1M) | ✅ +3.6% | ✅ Rs. 349 crore (profit) | Rs. 321 crore | 17.3% |
| Hyperpure | Rs. 1,473 crore ($175.8M) | ✅ +21.5% | ⚠️ Rs. (12) crore | Rs. (14) crore | -0.8% |
| Quick commerce (Blinkit) | Rs. 1,156 crore ($138.0M) | ✅ +22.7% | ✅ Rs. 48 crore (profit) | Rs. 43 crore | 4.2% |
| Going-out | Rs. 154 crore ($18.4M) | ✅ +62.1% | ✅ Rs. 18 crore (profit) | Rs. 11 crore | 11.7% |
| All other segments (residual) | Rs. 4 crore ($0.5M) | ⚠️ -73.3% | ✅ Rs. 2 crore (profit) | Rs. 1 crore | n/m |
| Total segment result (before unallocated costs/finance costs) | Rs. 4,799 crore gross | Rs. 405 crore | Rs. 362 crore |
Every segment held or improved its result QoQ, and the pattern from last quarter continued: India food ordering and delivery stayed the largest single profit contributor (Rs. 349 crore, a new high), and Quick commerce kept growing revenue fastest of the two largest segments (+22.7% QoQ) while its result grew more slowly (+11.6%), nudging its own margin down slightly to 4.2% of segment revenue from 4.6% - a mild deceleration worth watching next quarter if a deck becomes available to check against GOV, though not yet a real concern on one data point. Hyperpure kept the loss-narrowing trend from the Prescription flagged last quarter alive - its loss narrowed further to Rs. 12 crore from Rs. 14 crore even as revenue grew fastest of any segment (+21.5% QoQ), the opposite of the plateau that post worried about. Going-out posted its best quarter yet by a wide margin, revenue jumping 62.1% QoQ to Rs. 154 crore with margin holding at 11.7%. The one thing this table can't explain is where the Rs. 43 crore gap between the segment-level improvement (+Rs. 43 crore QoQ) and the consolidated PBT outcome (-Rs. 2 crore QoQ) went - see the opening section for that answer.
Beyond the Usual
This quarter's only sourced document is the bare regulatory XBRL numeric filing - unlike every quarter since the FY24 year-end, there's no accompanying qualitative auditor's review report text, no presentation deck, and no standalone-entity financial statements bundled with it. That materially limits what can be footnote-mined this time; the findings below reflect what the filing's own numeric notes actually disclose, not the fuller picture available in most other quarters in this series.
The standing GST and subsidiary-audit-scope threads can't be checked this quarter
Every quarter since the FY24 year-end filing, this series has tracked two live threads through Deloitte's bundled review report: the Rs. 420 crore GST show-cause-notice dispute over historical delivery charges (open, unchanged, for three straight quarters as of last quarter's post), and the shrinking "entities not reviewed by their auditors" disclosure. Neither Note appears anywhere in this quarter's sourced filing, because the filing itself doesn't contain the qualitative review-report text those disclosures live in - only the bare numeric statement was available. This isn't evidence either thread resolved or worsened; it's a genuine gap in what could be sourced this quarter, and both should be re-checked as soon as a fuller filing is available.
Cash-flow disclosure reverted to half-year-only, same pattern as a year ago
This quarter's regulatory filing discloses operating cash flow, investing cash flow, and financing cash flow only on a cumulative H1 FY25 (April-September 2024) basis, not quarter-only - reversing the natively quarter-only disclosure this company delivered in each of the three prior quarters (Q3 FY24, Q4 FY24, Q1 FY25). The same reversion happened in the exact same quarter a year earlier: Q2 FY24's cash flow was also only disclosed cumulatively, after Q1 FY24 had voluntarily broken out a quarter-only figure. Whether this is a genuine cadence pattern tied to the September half-year-end filing requirement, or simply inconsistent voluntary disclosure, is worth watching across a few more Q2s before concluding either way.
Lease liabilities roughly match the right-of-use asset balance
The filing's own notes on assets and liabilities disclose lease liabilities of Rs. 932 crore (non-current) plus Rs. 227 crore (current), a combined Rs. 1,159 crore, against right-of-use assets of Rs. 1,074 crore sitting inside "other non-current assets." The two are within about 8% of each other - a reasonably clean match that doesn't point to any material off-balance-sheet lease exposure, though the filing doesn't break out a future minimum lease payment schedule the way a full annual report's notes would, so this is a balance-sheet snapshot rather than a forward commitment view.
Share-based payment add-back ran at Rs. 364 crore for the half-year
The cash-flow statement's non-cash adjustments show Rs. 364 crore of share-based payment expense added back for H1 FY25 (April-September 2024) - a run-rate that, if it held steady across H2, would put full-year FY25 stock-based compensation north of Rs. 700 crore. That's a genuinely large non-cash charge sitting outside every profit metric in this post's Key Financial Metrics table, on a company whose CEO's single largest-ever ESOP grant was already flagged as a major line item back in the FY22 year-end post.
Target Valuation Range
Eternal is trading at roughly Rs. 2,38,378 crore market cap (Rs. 2,26,164 crore EV) - 12.4x annualized and 15.0x TTM statutory revenue, up sharply from 10.4x/12.6x last quarter. The stock's biggest single-quarter move of the entire profitable streak landed in the one quarter where consolidated profit before tax didn't actually grow - a genuine re-rating running ahead of the fundamentals, not catching up to them.
Eternal's shares (still trading as Zomato Limited at the time) closed at Rs. 273.30 on September 30, 2024, up 36.3% from the Rs. 200.56 close at the end of Q1 FY25 - the largest single-quarter price move of the profitable streak, well past the Q4 FY24 post's 47.2% IPO-year move only because that one is measured from a much lower base (no stock split has occurred between this quarter and today, so historical prices in this post are on a like-for-like nominal basis, not split-adjusted).
| Market cap → enterprise value | Q1 FY25 | Q2 FY25 |
|---|---|---|
| Share price (period-end) | Rs. 200.56 | Rs. 273.30 |
| Shares outstanding | ~870 crore | ~872 crore |
| Market capitalization | Rs. 1,74,487 crore | Rs. 2,38,378 crore ($28.4B) |
| Less: cash and investments | Rs. 12,539 crore | ~Rs. 12,214 crore |
| Enterprise value | Rs. 1,61,948 crore | Rs. 2,26,164 crore |
The peer-multiples sanity check remains the workable method - there's still no comparably-sized listed pure-play Indian food-delivery-plus-quick-commerce peer, and no Adjusted Revenue figure exists this quarter to build the management-non-GAAP multiple used in prior posts.
| Peer-multiple sanity check | Q1 FY25 | Q2 FY25 |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory revenue (annualized) | Rs. 16,824 crore | Rs. 19,196 crore |
| Statutory revenue (TTM) | Rs. 13,904 crore | Rs. 15,855 crore |
| P/S (annualized quarter revenue) | 10.4x | 12.4x |
| P/S (TTM revenue) | 12.6x | 15.0x |
Both multiples expanded meaningfully faster than the quarter's own revenue growth (+14.1% QoQ) would explain on its own, and expanded at all in a quarter where profit before tax was essentially flat - the reverse of last quarter's pattern, where every multiple briefly compressed as the price genuinely lagged the numbers.
A real discounted-cash-flow model remains out of reach, and for a sharper reason than either of the last two quarters. Free cash flow has now gone from Rs. 87 crore, to Rs. 54 crore, to an estimated ~Rs. 6 crore in three straight quarters - not just volatile, but trending toward zero as the Blinkit store-rollout capex cycle keeps outpacing operating cash generation (see Key Financial Metrics). A DCF built on a cash-flow line this close to breakeven, with no visibility this quarter into the operational metrics (GOV, store counts) that would explain whether the trend reverses, would be pure speculation rather than analysis. The peer-multiple read above is the honest limit of what can be said with confidence this quarter: the stock got meaningfully more expensive on every relative measure in a quarter that didn't deliver more consolidated profit to justify it.
Zomato Limited's unaudited (reviewed) consolidated financial results filing for the quarter and half year ended September 30, 2024 (board-approved October 22, 2024), filed in Ind-AS XBRL format. No presentation deck, earnings-call transcript, or standalone-entity financial statements were available for this quarter, unlike most other quarters in this series.