Online grocer BigBasket, which is currently in the final stages of closing a deal to sell a majority stake to the Tata Group, has reported a 36% growth in revenue to Rs 3,818 crore for the year ended March 31, 2020.
Losses shot up by 26% in the same period to Rs 710 crore from Rs 562.6 crore in FY19, driven up by a one-time cost of Rs 117 crore, marked as an exceptional item on its balance sheet, according to regulatory documents sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler. BigBasket’s expenses rose from Rs 3,365 crore in FY19 to Rs 4,411 crore in FY20.
The homegrown online grocer, which faced massive disruptions in its business soon after the country went into lockdown in March 2020 to curb the spread of Covid-19, recovered strongly as more customers flocked to online retail to buy their groceries. BigBasket had earlier said that it doubled its business during the lockdown, servicing over 300,000 deliveries a day compared to around 150,000 deliveries prior to the shutdown.
ET had reported last month that the Tata Group will shell out around $1.2 billion in a mix of the primary and secondary share sales to acquire around 60% stake in BigBasket, a deal which includes a plan to launch an IPO as early as 2022-23. Tata will supposedly integrate Bigbasket and online pharmacy 1mg, which it is also in talks to acquire a majority stake, into a super app it is planning to build, where customers will be able to shop across multiple categories and will facilitate various types of transactions.