India's Zomato says most Blinkit stores reopened after wage protests

BENGALURU (Reuters) -Indian food delivery firm Zomato Ltd said on Wednesday most stores of its grocery unit Blinkit had resumed operations after being shut due to wage protests, sending its shares up as much as 5%.

The disruptions had less than 1% impact on Zomato's revenue, the Gurgaon-based company said in a regulatory filing. Blinkit, which Zomato bought last year for $550 million, accounted for 12.7% of Zomato's total revenue in the third quarter.

Zomato had shut down some stores for a few days to ensure the safety of its employees at stores and the delivery partners after it made changes to the payout structure of Blinkit delivery partners, it said.

Blinkit has around 400 stores in India, of which 50 were shut, mostly in and around New Delhi, on Friday, as employees pushed demands for better wages.

The changes to pay were made to "address the needs of delivery partners, improve customer experience and reduce cancellation/order rejection frauds by few delivery partners in the system," Zomato said on Wednesday.

Blinkit competes with other big delivery firms, including top retailer Reliance-backed Dunzo, Tata's BigBasket and SoftBank-backed Swiggy in India's fast-growing grocery market.

(Reporting by Yagnoseni Das in Bengaluru; editing by Eileen Soreng)