Uber will acquire Taiwan's Delivery Hero's Food Panda delivery business for $950 million.
The deal, announced on Tuesday (14 May), is expected to close in the first half of next year and comes as Delivery Hero considers scaling back its operations in Asia.
“With our existing presence in Taiwan, Uber is well positioned to build on the significant local operations developed by Delivery Hero and foodpanda over the past few years and further invest in improving the experience for consumers, merchants, and delivery partners. “We are in the perfect position,” the companies said. said in a news release.
After the deal closes, Foodpanda's local consumers, sellers and delivery partners will transition to Uber Eats, the companies said. Uber and Delivery Hero also entered into a separate agreement in which Uber will purchase a stake in Delivery Hero for $300 million.
The announcement claims that the acquisition is the largest in Taiwan's history outside of the semiconductor industry, and will combine Uber Eats and Foodpanda merchants into one platform, giving consumers a wide variety of food options. and will offer more choice in price range.
“For example, consumers will benefit from the combination of Uber's broader selection in northern Taiwan and major metropolitan centers and Foodpanda's relative strength in southern Taiwan and smaller cities,” the release said. is stated.
“Improving service for consumers means more orders from merchants, and more orders from merchants means more opportunities for delivery partners to make money.”
The announcement comes three days after Berlin-based Delivery Hero announced it had called off negotiations to sell its Foodpanda operations in several other Asian countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos. It took place a month later.
The company, which acquired Foodpanda in 2016, said several weeks ago that it was confident the deal would be completed.
“At the time, the company believed it had reached agreement with a potential buyer on the basic terms of the sale of the business,” the company said. “However, Delivery Hero has taken the decision to withdraw from negotiations as this is no longer the case.”
Meanwhile, PYMNTS examined the recent partnership between Uber Eats and Instacart last week, finding that many of them want to “meet the needs of restaurants and groceries with a single, integrated digital platform, allowing them to offer a broader range of services.” pointed out that it has the potential to meet the needs of consumers. range of their daily activities. ”
According to the PYMNTS Intelligence study, “Consumer Interest in Everyday Apps,” 35% of U.S. consumers express a strong desire for everyday apps, and 69% say they would buy groceries from such apps; 65% say they would buy groceries from such an app. Purchases from restaurants.
