Eternal profit rises 92.3% to 1.25 billion rupees, misses estimates
Key Facts
Eternal's consolidated net profit rose 92.3% in the quarter ended September 2026 but missed analysts' average estimate as expansion costs at its Blinkit quick-commerce business weighed, Reuters reported. Profit reached 1.25 billion rupees, compared with 650 million rupees in the corresponding quarter of September 2025. Analysts had expected average net profit of 2.71 billion rupees, according to London Stock Exchange Group data cited by the agency. The result reflected pressure from delivery, employee and depreciation costs as the company continued to expand its businesses. Total expenses rose 75% year on year to 24,166 crore rupees during the September quarter, according to Moneycontrol.
Eternal reported revenue of 24,138 crore rupees in the second quarter of fiscal 2027, according to the Financial Express. That represented a 77.62% annual increase from revenue of 13,590 crore rupees in the second quarter of fiscal 2026. The comparison was affected by Blinkit's shift to owning inventory, a change Moneycontrol accounted for when presenting revenue growth on a comparable basis. Growth on that basis was 58% year on year during the September 2026 quarter. At Blinkit itself, net order value rose 79.3% from a year earlier, according to Reuters. It reached 209.40 billion rupees during the quarter as the business expanded, with the associated costs weighing on profit.
The company reported an improvement in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, which reached 666 crore rupees in the September 2026 quarter, according to Moneycontrol. The measure rose 197% from the corresponding quarter a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, it increased 20% from the previous quarter, according to the same website. Eternal shares closed 3.5% lower on 21 October 2026, according to Moneycontrol's report dated that day. On the future profitability of the food-delivery business, management said on the earnings call that it expected margins to remain broadly stable over a period of between 1 and 2 years. Management linked that outlook to continued investment in the business's growth, according to the call transcript published by Investing.com.
Separately, Eternal announced an AI assistant initiative called "Dark AI", which was undergoing internal testing when it was announced, according to NDTV Profit. The company says the assistant will use open-weight AI models hosted on its own infrastructure. Eternal promises to provide "end-to-end encryption" for users' conversations, according to the website's account of the initiative. Under that pledge, encryption would prevent the company itself from reading those conversations. Akshant Goyal said on the earnings call that the assistant "has not started generating revenue yet", according to the transcript published on Investing.com.
Management explained during the earnings call that a potentially strong response to the assistant could require additional investment in infrastructure and graphics processing units. It described the potential spending as investment in "infrastructure and graphics processing units and so on", linking the need for it to the scale of the response to the product, according to the call transcript. Eternal aims to launch the assistant globally by the end of 2026, according to NDTV Profit. In quick commerce, Blinkit aims to exceed 3,500 stores by March 2027, according to the Financial Express. Its store-network expansion plan extends to reaching about 5,000 stores by March 2028.