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CompaniesSamiksha Goel
10 min
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24 Mar 2025, 06:28 PM
ISTTata Neu was launched in 2022 by Tata Digital, inspired by the success of Chinese superapps WeChat and Alipay. (Tarun Kumar Sahu/Mint)SummaryTata Digital’s Neu app has failed to live up to its promise. Three years on, the company is banking on quick commerce to revive the superapp, taking on Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart. We dissect how the company aims to do that and loosen the oligopoly’s stranglehold over the market.
Bengaluru: It may have been an isolated incident, but Amogh Venkatanarayan remembers it vividly. Venkatanarayan, a Hyderabad-based engineer, has been using Tata Neu to buy groceries from BigBasket and flight tickets on AirAsia India, Tata’s budget airline. Last December, as he routinely explored the app, he saw the option of getting delivery in 10 minutes through Flash, a new service. He decided to try it out.
“Initially it showed 10 minutes’ time for delivery. When a delivery partner was assigned, that became 50 minutes. The package finally got delivered in about 55 minutes,” said Venkatanarayan, who was disappointed by the experience.
It wasn’t just the late delivery that bothered him, recalled the engineer; he had also struggled to pay for the order. When he tried, the app took him to BBNow. “I expected that all the items I added in the Neu Flash cart would show up, but they didn’t. I had to search for each item in my list again and then pay,” he said, suggesting there were syncing issues.
Venkatanarayan tried Flash again but had a similar experience. He has now shifted to opening BBNow within the Tata Neu app instead of using Flash.
“What is the difference between BigBasket Now and Tata Neu Flash as both are delivering groceries in under 15 minutes,” Ashish Singh wondered on social networking platform X late last year.
Responding to the post, a Tata Neu executive said, “BBNow is a service by BigBasket that focuses on speedy delivery of groceries and home essentials, while Tata Neu Flash is Tata’s quick delivery service for groceries, electronics and much more.” (A look at the BigBasket app today reveals that apart from household essentials, it also delivers electronic and fashion items within minutes.)View Full Image
Tata Neu’s growth has slowed over the past year, with downloads plunging 80% year-on-year in 4Q24 (October-December).
Not satisfied with the executive’s answer, Singh responded with a plea for clarity: “…you guys have so many options like BBNow, BBDaily, just BigBasket and now Neu Flash. This creates confusion because everything comes under Tata.”
A former senior executive at the company agrees. “Big Basket is a far better-known brand than Neu Flash. Who knows about Neu Flash? It is BigBasket that is seen to be competing with Zepto and Blinkit. I think it will confuse a lot of customers,” said T.N. Hari, an adviser at