Zomato extends catering section to Bangalore and Mumbai; is it looking at other revenue streams?

Info Edge-backed popular restaurant listing site, Zomato.com has extended its catering section to Bangalore and Mumbai. The catering section was first launched in the Delhi-NCR region in March this year. As of now, the Delhi-NCR region features 15 caterers and Bangalore and Mumbai feature 13 and seven, caterers respectively.

The catering section, which is displayed now as a category on the homepage, features all caterers, not in any particular order of price. The catering section features one picture for each caterer along with contact number, cuisines and starting price. Once the user selects any of the caterers, the following page displays more details about the service such as detailed description of cuisines, occasions, types of live counters, estimated price range, and the number of guests they can cater to.

Though as of now the number of caterers is very less in each region, there is a mix of cheaper as well as expensive options. This seems to be another stream for revenue for Zomato since this would also come under the pay-per-lead tie-up that it has with restaurants. A rollout of the service in other metro cities too is expected soon.

How much the unorganised and fragmented catering market will benefit from this feature is to be seen but for now it seems like Zomato is also looking at revenue streams other than ads. However, in an earlier conversation with Techcricle.in Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO, Zomato stated that they are not looking look at alternative revenue streams and are content with the existing ones. "We are not looking at any other revenue channel. For now, our focus is geographical expansion and adding more cities to our portal," he had said.

Zomato is backed by Info Edge (India) Ltd, which put in Rs 55 crore ($10.07 million) more in Zomato Media. That infusion of funds took Info Edge's total investment into Zomato to Rs 86.06 crore and its holding has risen to 57.9 per cent (from 48.5 per cent), making it the majority shareholder in the company now.

(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)