Uber launches global assault on takeaway meals deliveries
Co starts food delivery in Japan
AMSTERDAM, Sept 28, (RTRS): Uber Technologies is making an aggressive drive into takeaway meal deliveries, with the US firm gearing up with a big staff recruitment campaign to enter at least 22 more countries.
Reflecting its fierce determination to expand beyond its core taxihailing business, Uber will launch its UberEats service in Amsterdam on Thursday, the first day of trading in the Dutch market leader Takeaway. com’s shares.
And according to current job listings on Uber and other recruiting websites, UberEats is advertising 150 roles ranging from general managers to sales staff and delivery couriers that show it plans to enter at least 22 new countries globally in the near future. The company already operates in six countries.
In addition to Amsterdam UberEats says it is also due to launch services in Dubai, Johannesburg and selected areas of Tokyo on Thursday and plans to be in Brussels, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Taipei, Jakarta, and Bangkok in the coming months.
“There’s a lot of momentum in the organisation behind UberEats ... We definitely are investing in this space,” said Simon Rossi, general manager at UberEats Asia Pacific at a launch event in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Focuses
“I definitely feel it’s one of the most important focuses in the (Uber) organisation,” he said.
As recently as May, Uber executives were signalling that UberEats’ international ambitions were a modest extension of its core business of transporting people. But staff recruitments, increased investments and more aggressive service offerings in recent months suggest something more ambitious is taking shape.
“UberEats is one (business) we feel incredibly confident is resonating across the world and resonating across the footprint of the cities in which Uber operates the transport business,” Jambu Palaniappan, head of UberEats for Europe, Middle East and Africa, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Currently Europe is home to many of the most active international players in the online food takeaway business and they are counting on their local ties, established customer bases and extensive restaurant networks to fend off new competition from the likes of Uber and Amazon.
The biggest international players - Britain’s Just Eat , Germany’s Delivery Hero and Takeaway.com focus on advertising local takeaways and booking orders for nearby users, while leaving deliveries to be made by the restaurants themselves.
But they have also been raising fresh capital and consolidating in preparation for Uber’s arrival in their markets. Meanwhile some smaller players have shut down as new funding has grown scarcer, such as Belgium’s Take Eat Easy, which operated in 20 European cities, and London-based Pronto, which cooked meals as well as delivered them.
Deals
Investors have poured nearly $10 billion (8.9 billion euros) into 421 food delivery deals since the start of 2014, but funding dropped by more than half in the first six months of 2016, according to research from CBInsights.
Adding to pressures on existing food delivery players, Amazon launched its international expansion of Amazon Restaurants by entering the London market earlier this month, building on its existing 11-city base in the United States.
“The problem for many of the remaining players is that they are subscale: They can’t compete without superior logistics,” said Neil Campling, head of global research for the tech industry at fund manager Northern Trust Capital Markets.
Since launching in London in June, Uber has promised to cut delivery times to within a 30-minute window, with no minimum order size or extra delivery fees. You can order a cupcake made in Kensington and have it driven across town to Whitechapel for the price of the cupcake in the shop.
In contrast, many rivals promise orders will take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour, while requiring minimum orders and charging customer delivery fees. UberEats also benefits by being promoted through Uber’s existing, very popular car hire app.