Eternal Spent ₹28 Crore More Than It Earned, And Still Reported A Profit

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Eternal reported consolidated revenue from operations of ₹24,138 crore in the second quarter of FY27, up more than 77 per cent from ₹13,590 crore a year earlier, with net profit rising 92 per cent to ₹125 crore.

Total expenditure for the quarter was ₹24,166 crore, marginally above operating revenue. Non-operating income of ₹351 crore took total income to ₹24,489 crore.

Blinkit remained the largest contributor, with revenue up 93 per cent to ₹19,152 crore, close to four-fifths of the group total. Zomato's food delivery business grew 37 per cent to ₹3,396 crore and accounted for 14 per cent of revenue. Hyperpure, the B2B supplies arm, rose 13 per cent to ₹1,154 crore, and going-out platform District grew 61 per cent to ₹304 crore.

At segment level, food delivery posted EBITDA of ₹647 crore. Blinkit's EBITDA rose nearly 98 times to ₹488 crore. District recorded an EBITDA loss of ₹55 crore.

Material costs were the largest expense at ₹14,602 crore, over 60 per cent of total expenditure. Delivery and related costs rose 62 per cent to ₹3,581 crore, employee benefits 32.5 per cent to ₹1,146 crore and advertising 41 per cent to ₹1,138 crore.

Sequentially, operating revenue rose more than 19 per cent from ₹20,211 crore in the first quarter. For the half year ended September 2026, revenue was ₹44,349 crore with net profit of ₹217 crore.

Eternal shares closed 4 per cent lower at ₹307 on Wednesday, valuing the company at ₹3,01,429 crore, around $31.7 billion.

Put the two largest numbers in the release next to each other and the quarter reads differently.

Revenue from operations was ₹24,138 crore. Total expenditure was ₹24,166 crore. The operating business was ₹28 crore short of covering itself. What produced the ₹125 crore of net profit was ₹351 crore of non-operating income, which is to say interest and similar returns on the cash Eternal is holding rather than anything the business did for customers.

This is not an accounting trick and the company has not hidden it. But it is a materially different statement from the one the headline makes. A 92 per cent rise in profit sounds like operating leverage arriving. On these figures, operations went slightly backwards and the balance sheet covered the gap.

The segment data explains why, and it is the most useful part of the release. Food delivery produced ₹647 crore of EBITDA on ₹3,396 crore of revenue, a margin near 19 per cent. Blinkit produced ₹488 crore on ₹19,152 crore, a margin near 2.5 per cent. The smaller business earns more money. Per rupee of revenue it earns roughly seven and a half times more.

Which means the 77 per cent revenue growth everyone will quote came almost entirely from the part of Eternal that converts revenue into profit least efficiently. Blinkit's EBITDA rising 98 times is real and is the genuinely good news here, but it is 98 times a very small number.

The question for the next few quarters is whether Blinkit's margin climbs toward food delivery's, or whether food delivery's share keeps falling toward irrelevance first.

The company that reported this quarter is not the company most people still describe.

Blinkit is now roughly four-fifths of revenue. Food delivery, the business the market has valued Eternal on for five years, is 14 per cent. Hyperpure and District together are under 7 per cent. Whatever Eternal is worth, it is now overwhelmingly a quick commerce valuation with a food delivery business attached, and the two have entirely different economics.

That matters for how the ₹3,01,429 crore market capitalisation should be read. Quick commerce at 2.5 per cent EBITDA margins and heavy inventory is closer to organised retail than to a marketplace, and organised retail does not trade on marketplace multiples. Food delivery at 19 per cent margins deserves one, and it is shrinking as a share of the whole.

The cost lines show the shift plainly. Material costs of ₹14,602 crore are over 60 per cent of expenditure, which is the signature of a business that buys and holds goods rather than one that takes a commission on someone else's. Delivery costs rose 62 per cent, faster than food delivery revenue grew.

For the companies still raising against quick commerce comparables, this is the first quarter where the scaled version of the model is fully visible at a listed company. It can reach ₹19,152 crore of quarterly revenue. What it cannot yet do, at that scale, is cover the group's costs without help from the balance sheet.

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