Within the first minute of Reliance Industries’ earnings presentation for the December quarter on Friday, chief financial officer V Srikanth made sure he had his audience’s attention. 

The first response of anyone who has been closely watching the grocery-delivery business would have been: “Wait, what?” 

Few imagined Jiomart, Reliance’s e-commerce arm, to be a serious contender in quick commerce, much less close to being the second biggest. The scepticism wasn’t unwarranted. By the time Jiomart rolled out its instant-delivery service, in 2024, incumbents Blinkit, Instamart, and Zepto were so deeply entrenched that catching up to them seemed nothing short of Herculean. 

Rival Bigbasket’s struggles in pivoting from slotted delivery to quick commerce didn’t exactly inspire confidence in Jiomart’s plans. 

Finally, even before 10-minute delivery reshaped online grocery shopping, Jiomart wasn’t the world-beater one had expected it to be at the time of its high-decibel launch in 2020.

But that obviously never stopped Reliance from talking up Jiomart. Last week was no different. 

For good measure, journalists were quick to cast Jiomart’s 1.6 million orders per day in a favourable light, by mentioning Blinkit’s (2.5 million) and Instamart’s (1.1 million) numbers in the July–September period. Eternal and Swiggy, which own these services, respectively, haven’t yet disclosed their financials for the following quarter. 

But Reliance’s claims raise more questions than they answer. Dinesh Taluja, group CFO of Reliance Retail, said on the Friday call that Jiomart’s quick-commerce business  already has a positive contribution margin. In other words, its sales are higher than variable expenses such as the cost of goods sold,  shipping, and packaging. 

So how did Jiomart pull this off despite a late start? 

Reliance, by virtue of being the country’s largest grocer, can certainly source products at lower prices than its peers, offer steep discounts, and make money, Taluja explained.

At 1.6 million orders a day from 3,000 stores, Jiomart’s per-store volume is over 530 orders. What’s odd, though, is that Instamart, which on average delivered twice as many orders from each of its stores in the September quarter, still couldn’t turn a contribution profit. 

Plus, the store economics for Jiomart are very different from those of its competitors. Only 800 of the 3,000 stores it uses for instant delivery are meant specifically for this service.