10% of orders placed through quick food delivery service: Magicpin CEO

In food delivery, particularly in Delhi and Bengaluru, Magicpin holds a 10 per cent market share, said Magicpin CEO

The ongoing conflict between food aggregators and restaurants has reignited the call for a third alternative. In an interview with Udisha Srivastav, Anshoo Sharma, co-founder and chief executive officer, Magicpin, discusses how the platform is positioning itself as that alternative with restaurant backing. He also gives insights on Magicpin’s expansion and ONDC (open network for digital commerce) integration. Edited excerpts.

 

Can you outline Magicpin’s market share and growth strategy?

 

In food delivery, particularly in Delhi and Bengaluru, Magicpin holds a 10 per cent market share. This year we aim to expand into 10 more cities, including Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, and Kolkata, with the goal of achieving a similar market share. Nationally, we want food delivery to account for 20 per cent of the market.

 

Your expansion plans?

 

We operate in India’s top 20 cities and have divided the market into 6,500 localities. Our focus is on deepening our presence in these cities. We have 200,000 merchants on board and aim to double that. Similarly, our restaurant partnerships stand at 100,000, and we plan to double this by year-end.

 

With growth across segments, our MagicFleet rider count will also double from 15,000. Currently, our fleet completes 60 per cent of Magicpin orders, with the rest done by ONDC partners. Our fleet competes with other ONDC players to provide the fastest pickup and delivery, reinforcing our logistics capabilities.

 

How is your instant food-delivery arm, MagicNOW, performing?

 

We deliver within 15-18 minutes. We started with 2,000 stores and now have 15,000, with rapid adoption among merchants. Today, about 10 per cent of our orders come via MagicNOW. Customers using MagicNOW exhibit higher satisfaction and repeat orders more frequently.

 

With the disputes between the National Restaurant Association of India and food aggregators, Magicpin is emerging as an alternative. What sets you apart?

 

Unlike other food-delivery platforms, we will never operate dark stores. This is to support merchants rather than compete with them. We focus on marketing and driving business to them rather than running our own cloud kitchens. This commitment has attracted top brands to collaborate with us and offer better prices.

 

ONDC functions like a consortium with players like Ola, enabling restaurants to sell food directly to consumers through platforms like Magicpin. A formal announcement reinforcing this model will be made soon. This structured collaboration, combined with our investment in growing the ecosystem, strengthens the case for a third major food-delivery platform.

 

Magicpin’s integration with ONDC?

 

At the heart of what we are doing is bringing local markets alive on the user’s smartphone. We do this across categories. Before the pandemic we were only about the “going out” business but the pandemic forced us to start deliveries. In late 2022, we spoke to ONDC about plugging our merchants into the platform where large companies and apps can showcase them. As a result, our integration with ONDC happened in 2023. Currently, 90 per cent of our business originates on Magicpin (both seller and buyer side) and 10 per cent from other buyer apps.