Zomato-owned quick commerce platform, Blinkit reported positive adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) for the month of March, indicating that it is slowly approaching profitability.

The quick commerce firm hopes to have 1,000 dark stores by March 2025 or mini warehouses from which the platform delivers goods.

It plans to raise its market share across cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore, and Mumbai.

Regarding its quick-commerce business, it defines adjusted Ebitda as Ebitda plus share-based payment expenses excluding some lease rental payouts.

During the January to March quarter, Blinkit witnessed a negative Ebitda of Rs.37 crore compared to Rs 203 crore during the corresponding period in the last year.

Along the line, Blinkit is strategizing expansion in anticipation of its effect on its adjusted Ebitda.

As of March quarter, Blikit recorded a gross order value (GOV) of Rs 4,027 crore, a 97 percent year-over-year increase.

But the average order value (AOV) dropped from Rs 635 in the December quarter to Rs 617.

By the end of this fiscal year, the quick commerce platform envisions a 1,000 locations overall, up from 526 as of March 31.

“With this aggressive store expansion planned (almost 2x store count in 12 months), the overall adjusted Ebitda in our business is likely to hover around zero for the next few quarters. In steady state, we expect a 4-5 percent adjusted Ebitda margin (as a percent of GOV),” Blinkit chief executive Albinder Dhindsa said.

While the quick-commerce platform is available in 26 cities and rivals Swiggy's Instamart, Zepto, financed by Nexus Venture Partners, and Tata Digital's Bigbasket, which is headed for an IPO, Dhindsa stated that it will concentrate on growing in the top eight cities in India.

With over one-third of Blinkit's dark storefronts and 43 percent of the platform's GOV, Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR) is the company's largest region.

“We are significantly underpenetrated in the top cities. Our second largest city (by GOV), Bengaluru, is less than 30% of Delhi-NCR’s GOV, with a similar gap in store count. The job for us over the next few quarters is to get Bengaluru and other large cities like Mumbai and Hyderabad to the penetration of Delhi-NCR, both in terms of store footprint and GOV,” Dhindsa said.

“This alone will lead to around 4x increase in our GOV,” he added.