Swiggy launching a new app is not a new strategy, says chief Sriharsha Majety on Instamart, Snacc launch

Launching new apps has always been a part of Swiggy’s strategy, and moves to launch separate apps for Instamart and Snacc, shouldn’t be seen as a departure from its core offering, the company’s group chief executive officer and co-founder Sriharsha Majety told in an interview.

In the past, a host of offerings, such as Swiggy Daily, Supr Daily, Dineout and Insanely Good, have all existed as separate apps even as they continued to be housed under the main app, enabling multiple entry points.

“The separate apps that we launched before did not work for very different reasons, where we didn’t find product-market fit (PMF) in those,” Majety said.

Swiggy has in fact seen that separate apps drive more users.

“We had the experience of the Dineout standalone app. It had a certain user base that had existed already (at the time of acquisition), and those users continue to use it even now. We have however found a lot more growth on the Swiggy app as well, thanks to an integrated approach. We get a huge amount of cross pollination benefits,” Majety added.

Majety was speaking after Moneycontrol, on January 6, first reported that the company has launched Snacc, a separate app for 15-minute food deliveries. On January 9, Majety said that the company will also launch more apps like Instamart as the firm looks to adopt a multi-app strategy.

Along with Snacc and Instamart, more apps like Pyng, a Justdial-like offering, and a separate one for Rare, a membership programme by Swiggy, are also in the works, sources told Moneycontrol.

While Majety did not comment on Pyng and Rare, he said the company is launching dedicated apps because the customer base has expanded and their needs have evolved.

“During the initial years, we did not imagine a world beyond 150 million users. Now, we’re looking at even 300 and 500 million users, thanks to quick commerce.”

The realities have changed, as per Majety.

“Instamart is now in 75 cities and in new categories. As we add category, stuff is selling more and more so. But we’re only 5-10 percent done, even for the quick commerce category. If quick commerce is going to be even larger than the food delivery business in terms of user base, we want to learn early on at 5-10 percent stage itself,” he added.

Even as the company plans separate apps, the efforts to increase customer recall, per Majety, will not change significantly.

“We are hardly breaking any new ground in this decision. There are so many templates, companies, and it (a separate app launch) is not like a wildly new experience. It is the instrument, the same instrument that consumers know in a sector. It is not that much of a new challenge,” Majety said.

The launches come at a time when rivals such as Zomato-owned Blinkit and Zepto have also announced different apps for new offerings. While Gurugram-based Blinkit launched Bistro, Zepto announced Zepto Cafe.

Even as different players adopt different strategies, experts and industry stakeholders have said there is no clear indication that one approach works better than the other.