Ride-hailing giant Uber has been left wondering to what to do about UberEats business in India, after the latter failed to seize sizable market share in India’s food delivery market. But now the parent company has apparently conjured a viable solution and the solution is to integrate UberEats into its main ride-hailing app.
According to Economic Times (ET), Uber has already started pilot testing a new super app interface that will merge its ride-hailing and food delivery businesses under one app. Resultantly, this may help in increasing UberEats visibility and propel the sale of its food delivery business.
ET reports claims that the ride-hailing giant plans to launch the super-app in the Indian market by early next year. The company is hopeful that this will not only convert riders into eaters but also lower its customer acquisition cost.
This development has come barely months after Uber’s negotiation to sell its food delivery business to Swiggy collapsed.
However, the San Frisco based ride-hailing giant is not the only one that is trying hard to fix its struggling food delivery business. Its arch rival Ola is also struggling to revamp its food delivery business, after it recently decided to suspend the FoodPanda operations due to lower sales. India’s home grown ride-hailing giant has now pivoted to cloud kitchen model to operate its food delivery business.
With UberEats and FoodPanda scaling down their businesses, India’s food delivery market has been largely reduced to two horse race where Swiggy and Zomato are pitted against each other. Most industry experts believe that the on-going consolidation in India’s foodtech sector is least surprising, considering that the sector operates under challenging condition where the profit margin is too wafer-thin and cash burn rate is too high.
Another prominent delivery app Dunzo is trying hard to pose challenge to Swiggy and Zomato. However, can Dunzo pull off something that even deep-pocket players like Ola and Uber couldn’t is to be seen.