"Uber launches global assault on food delivery market"
From Reuters:
Uber is making an
aggressive drive into meal delivery, backed by a wave of staff
recruitment, with the U.S. tech heavyweight gearing up to enter at least
22 new countries and take on local rivals.In
a measure of rising ambition beyond its taxi business, Uberwill begin delivering meals in Amsterdam on Thursday just as Dutch
market leader Takeaway.com, begins trading on the city's
stock market.
And
according to current job listings on Uber and other recruiting sites -
for about 150 roles ranging from general managers and sales staff to
bike couriers - UberEats is planning to enter at least 22 new countries
across the world in the near future. That is on top of the six countries
where it already operates.
As recently as May, Uber executives
were signaling that UberEats' international ambitions were a modest
extension of its core business of transporting people. But its job
hiring efforts over the last three 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, recently named head
of UberEats for Europe, Middle East and Africa, told Reuters in an
interview on Tuesday.
He
named eight cities including Dubai and Johannesburg that UberEats plans
to enter by the end of the year, but declined to spell out later
targets.
Europe is home
base to many of the most active international players in the online food
takeaway business. They are counting on their local ties, established
customer bases and sprawling restaurant networks to insulate them from
U.S. tech giants.
The biggest international players - Britain's Just Eat (JE.L),
Germany's Delivery Hero and Takeaway.com - focus on advertising local
takeaways and booking orders for nearby users, while leaving deliveries
to the restaurants themselves.
They have been raising fresh capital or swapping assets to bulk up in the expectation that Uber would ratchet up its challenge.
Meanwhile,
smaller players - Belgium's Take Eat Easy, delivering in 20 European
cities, and London-based Pronto, which cooked meals as well as delivered
them - have shut down in recent months, as the rush of funding that
created dozens of start-ups modeled on Uber in recent years has
dwindled.
SUB-SCALE
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....
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