A majority of Zepto's dark stores are now profitable at an operating level, according to the company's co-founder and CEO, Aadit Palicha, in an interview with Moneycontrol. Zepto operates over 200 dark stores in major metro cities in India, and approximately 50-60 percent of them have started generating cash flows, Palicha added. This development comes at a time when the quick-commerce industry has exhibited signs of slowing down in an inflationary environment. The most recent financial results from Blinkit, a company owned by Zomato, revealed a downward trend in the average order value (AOV) over the past two quarters. In Q4FY23, the AOV stood at Rs 522, down from Rs 568 in Q2FY23. Palicha, however, stated that Zepto's AOVs have experienced year-on-year growth of approximately 40 percent, hovering in the range of Rs 440-450. “Over the past few months, most consumer-led companies have gone through a lot of pain, their growth has slowed but Zepto has been an anomaly on that front. Over the past 12 months, our business has grown 4X in size and most of our dark stores have turned profitable faster than traditional offline supermarkets turn profitable in India,” Palicha said.

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