Eternal's June-quarter numbers contain a line that looks like a corporate takeover from within. Blinkit booked Rs 15,664 crore of revenue in Q1 FY27 against Rs 3,100 crore for the food delivery business that made Zomato famous, so the grocery app now accounts for about 77.5% of the group's Rs 20,211 crore top line. The 10-minute delivery bet did not just work, it swallowed the parent.
Except the number is not quite what it looks like. Most of that five-to-one gap comes from an accounting model, not from Indians ordering five times more groceries than dinners. The real story underneath is still good, just smaller and more interesting than the headline.
What happened in Eternal's Q1 FY27?
Eternal reported results for the April to June 2026 quarter on 22 July 2026. Consolidated revenue reached Rs 20,211 crore, up 182% from Rs 7,167 crore a year earlier, while net profit rose 268% to Rs 92 crore from Rs 25 crore. EBITDA came in at about Rs 594 crore, up 416% year on year, at a 2.9% margin, roughly 133 basis points better than Q1 FY26.
The sequential picture is less flattering. Profit fell about 47% from the March 2026 quarter, because the company kept spending hard on growth, including Rs 945 crore on advertising in the quarter alone.
Here is how the group splits.
Why is Blinkit's revenue five times food delivery's?
Because the two businesses are counted on different scales. Blinkit runs an inventory-led model, known as 1P, where it buys the stock and sells it to you, so the entire billed value of your grocery order lands in revenue. Food delivery is a marketplace: Zomato never owns the biryani, so only its commission is revenue, not the restaurant bill.
Swap in the like-for-like measure and the story shrinks to a sensible size. Blinkit's net order value, the actual money customers spent, grew 86% year on year to Rs 17,132 crore and 19% sequentially, which is fast but nothing like the 552% revenue jump the accounting produces. Net order value is the number to track from here, and it is the one management leads with.
Why this matters for investors
The model shift changes what Eternal actually is. A marketplace takes a cut with almost no working capital; an inventory-led retailer owns stock, and stock rots, breaks and walks out of the door. Blinkit disclosed inventory losses of roughly 1.8% of net order value, about Rs 308 crore in the quarter, covering expiry, shrinkage, damage, pilferage and loss in transit. That line did not exist in the old marketplace version of the business.
The upside is control. Owning inventory means owning pricing, private labels, supplier terms and assortment, which is how a grocery business eventually earns real margin rather than a thin commission. Blinkit's adjusted EBITDA rose to about Rs 102 crore from Rs 37 crore in Q4 FY26, a second straight profitable quarter, so the model is at least paying for itself while it scales, as our Eternal Q4 FY26 coverage first flagged when Blinkit crossed into profit.
Food delivery, meanwhile, remains the quiet adult in the room. It grew 37% with a genuinely profitable structure, and it is the business funding the grocery war, a dynamic our Swiggy versus Zomato comparison looks at from the competitive side.
How did the market react?
The first reaction was flat. Eternal closed at Rs 284.40 on the BSE on 22 July 2026, down 0.77%, because the 47% sequential fall in reported profit landed before the segment detail did. Headline profit misses tend to move the stock first and get corrected later.
The correction came fast. The stock rose about 4.5% in the next session as brokerages read the Blinkit margin commentary, and Eternal carried a large cluster of buy ratings out of the quarter. The disagreement was never about growth, only about what the company should be paying for it.
What investors should watch next
Net order value, not revenue, is the honest growth number for Blinkit from here. Reported revenue will keep looking spectacular for as long as the 1P base effect lasts, and it will tell you nothing new about demand once the transition laps.
The inventory loss rate is the single cleanest test of whether Blinkit can run a real retail operation. At 1.8% of net order value it is manageable; drifting toward 3% at this scale would erase the thin adjusted profit entirely.
Store additions show whether the land-grab is still on. Blinkit added 200 dark stores in the quarter to reach 2,443, and each new store carries a loss before it matures, so a faster build means weaker near-term margin by design.
Competition is the last variable, and it is not standing still. Zepto and Instamart are spending to hold share, and deeper-pocketed entrants have made quick commerce the most expensive fight in Indian consumer internet, which our quick commerce war breakdown maps in full.
Risks to monitor
The second risk is that profitability is still thin in absolute terms. Rs 92 crore of net profit on Rs 20,211 crore of revenue is a 0.45% margin, which leaves no cushion if discounting intensifies or delivery costs rise.
The third is regulatory and labour cost pressure on gig platforms, which would land directly on a model built around 10-minute promises and a fleet of riders. This is general information, not investment advice.
The most useful thing about this quarter is what it reveals about reading new-age company results at all. A single accounting choice turned a fast-growing grocery business into a number that looks like it grew six times over, and plenty of coverage repeated the six times figure. The companies are not hiding it, the detail sits right there in the segment tables. It is just that almost nobody reads that far.