How are India’s Unicorns getting impacted by the Lockdown?

Using Google Trends, we guage how various Sectors have been impacted by the Lockdown

The winners

1. Big Basket – Search Trends for Big Basket have reached levels never seen before for the company. Until early March, search trends for Ola Cabs for example was 5 times that of Big Basket. After Lockdown, Big Basket is two times that of Ola. Big basket is almost at the levels of Ola a month ago. The only question is whether Big Basket can meet this massive spike in demand.

2. Byju’s – Data shows a slight positive spike or steady performance

The Losers

3. Flipkart: Flipkart has seen a fall in search by half between March Middle and March end, the steepest month on month fall since demonetisation. Flipkart logged in a revenue of Rs 3600 crores a month In FY 2019.

4. Swiggy: Swiggy search has reached levels last seen in early 2018. In that year Swiggy clocked monthly revenue of Rs 37 crores. Last year, it had clocked about Rs 94 crores a month.

5. Zomato: Same trends as Swiggy, search trends are at the level of early 2018. Revenues in FY 2018 were in the 50 to 60 cr range while it was in the Rs 110 to 120 cr range in FY 2019.

6. Oyo Rooms – Search Trends indicate levels last seen in May 2015. That is the year the company recorded revenues of about 2.5 cr a month. In FY 2018-19, Oyo clocked about 350 cr a month

7. Ola Cabs – Search Trends indicate levels last seen in Nov 2014. That is the year the company recorded revenues of about 35 cr a month. In FY 2018-19, Ola clocked about 212 cr a month

Status Unclear as of now

8. Policy Bazaar – Search trends are indicating a level slightly higher than March 2017 but much lower than March 2018 and March 2019. While there was a spike in the week of 29th March, it was lower than the spike seen in the last week of March 2019. That said, the overall fall is not very steep. Part of the fall may also have been due to the extension of Tax savings deadline from March 31 to June 30 of 2020-21

9. Paytm – Paytm has been trending downwards Since December 2016 and that continues. A small spike is seen in the last one week but it is unclear of the overall impact is negative or even positive

10. Dream11 – The Postponment of IPL means the company is seeing levels last seen in March 2018. However, should the IPL return sometime this year, the company could still make up for the loss in revenue.

Overall, it appears some of the unicorns are likely to lose anywhere between 5 to 10% of their revenue (seasonality not taken into account and assuming a 1 month lockdown). Compensatory purchases may cover some of those losses in case of some companies. Pure play outdoor service sector companies are unlikely to be able to recoup this loss of revenue. Lingering effects of this period may impact some categories more than the others atleast for a couple of months as consumers become more careful with their health and safety. They are may be issues with potential job losses and wage cuts leading to consumption cuts that may also impact some Unicorns.

Read up on all our articles about COVID-19 impact here

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