After UAE, Zomato expands services into Sri Lanka

Zomato, South-Asia’s largest restaurant and nightlife guide, which entered the Middle Eastern market last month with its launch in the UAE, has now expanded its services to Sri Lanka. After Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, Colombo (zomato.com/colombo) is Zomato’s fourth international city, taking its presence to 17 cities across 3 countries – India, UAE and Sri Lanka.

Providing in-depth information on around 600 restaurants across Colombo, Zomato proves to be the one-stop shop for anyone looking to eat out or get food delivered. Zomato’s biggest strength is that it provides scanned menus, photos and coordinates with most of the restaurants listed in the city.

The user, therefore, knows what to expect when he or she enters the restaurant. Users can also explore or search for restaurants in their city through the Zomato app, which is available for free across all major smartphone platforms – Windows Phone, BlackBerry, iOS, Android and others (zomato.com/mobile).

Zomato was founded by Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, both IIT Delhi graduates and ex-Bain employees, in July 2008 for New Delhi. Zomato is over four years old and gets more than 6.5 million users every month who use Zomato to discover the best places to eat around them.

The Colombo launch is in line with Zomato’s plans to further increase its reach in the Middle East and South East Asia by the end of 2012.

Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO Zomato said, “Along with some macro level indicators, we do a thorough on-ground research across several metrics (data collection, merchant partnerships, user engagement etc) before entering a new market.

“Colombo fit in into our expansion plans perfectly. Favourable metrics and the limited product customisation required for the local market aided in replicating our model seamlessly here. After Middle East, we are looking forward to a successful launch and market response in Colombo.”