Is UberEATS the next big thing?

Delivery has always been an established part of the food industry. However, with the increasing popularity of online platforms such as Delivery Hero and Menulog to help bring an improved delivery experience, people are finding a more efficient and aggregated way to order food online.

Uber, a major player in the ridesharing space has also jumped into this market launching their UberEATS platform first in several parts of the U.S. and then more recently moving to Melbourne and Sydney to compete with established players in the area. According to TechCrunch, the current market potential for food delivery in Australia and New Zealand is about 1.6 billion pounds, with an online penetration rate of 22%.

According to Uber, UberX has serviced over 1 million rides in Sydney alone with a driver base of about 12,000+ driver partners across Australia. With Uber’s large existing network of drivers and ridesharing customers in Australia, they can leverage their existing supply and demand base and bring their platform up to scale to compete with the likes of Foodora, Delivery Hero, Deliveroo and Menulog.

Older companies, such as Domino’s Pizza have also taken steps to innovate in the food delivery space, launching their much anticipated DRU – Domino’s Robotic Unit, a four-wheeled robot that has compartments to deliver pizza and drinks to customers. Also, 7-11 recently partnered with Sydney-based drone delivery startup, Flirtey, to do a first-ever FAA-approved drone delivery of slurpees and chicken sandwiches to a local customer’s house. Many companies are exploring the use of robotics to do automated food deliveries, which may one day remove the need for manual deliveries done by humans.

Having market share in the food delivery industry is extremely important and this “billion-dollar war” will only get tougher as saturation increases. With more startups emerging in the space that will either assist or compete with the existing companies, there will be more rounds of funding and acquisitions that will help drive down delivery prices, provide a better experience and increase the number of options available for consumers. Only time will tell which companies will come out on top. 

At EB, we are really keen to work on such a state-of-art project, our mobile app development team is one of the best in Australia.