Health-tech startup Tata 1mg eyes 500 offline stores by year-end

Tata-owned health-tech startup Tata 1mg plans to more than double its offline store presence to nearly 500 outlets across India by the end of 2026, up from around 220 stores currently, Prashant Tandon, cofounder and chief executive officer of the company, said. 

The move signals a sharper push towards omnichannel growth amid continued regulatory uncertainty in e-pharmacy. 

In an interaction with Business Standard, Tandon said, “We have almost 220 stores now. With expansion, we are targeting around 280-300 stores in this financial year by March 31 (FY26). We’re almost at a store a day run rate now. By the end of this calendar year (2026-end), I would expect us to be closer to 500 stores, and all our stores are also omnichannel stores.” 

“We spent a good year and a half just solving for the (seamless) experience both online and offline, and now we are scaling it up,” he said.  

At present, for the company, the offline segment comprises a small share of revenue, around 7-8 per cent. However, with more stores, the share of offline business will be in double digits, according to Tandon. 

“The more stores you have, the more revenue it brings. It’s fairly linear. I haven’t done my math, but I think in the long run, offline should come to around 20-25 per cent at least of our business,” he added.  

In addition to expanding physical retail, the company also plans to double down on quick commerce (qcom). Tandon noted that the firm is already doing instant deliveries in around seven to eight cities and this calendar year, it will enable faster deliveries to more cities. The company has also partnered with another Tata-owned firm, BigBasket, to provide instant medicine delivery service.  

Talking about the need of capital for funding expansion, Tandon noted that access to capital is not a challenge for the company. 

“The business itself has almost turned profitable. So, all the investment we need today is for offline expansion and we have access to many sources of capital. We will be looking at equity, debt, whatever is the suitable way to keep expanding and those conversations will continue. We don’t need capital to fund our current business. We need capital only for expansion,” he added.  

Even as the company is expanding offline, Tandon emphasised that it’s important to have the e-pharmacy rule in place. 

“It’s high time that we had (the rules), because all pharmacies today are omnichannel and we need rules and acts that are suitable to the current market. So, hopefully we’ll see progress,” he mentioned. 

Overall, in FY26, the company is expecting to grow 25-30 per cent, Tandon shared. 

Notably, the Gurugram-headquartered company recorded consolidated revenue at ₹2,392 crore in FY25, up 21.5 per cent from ₹1,968 crore in FY24.