Uber Technologies has announced a significant deal to strengthen its food delivery presence in Asia. The company will acquire the Taiwan unit of Delivery Hero’s Foodpanda for a whopping $950 million in cash. This acquisition is a strategic move by Uber Eats to expand its foothold in the Taiwanese market and is expected to close in the first half of 2025.
As part of the transaction, Uber will also purchase $300 million in newly issued ordinary shares of Delivery Hero, the Germany-based company that operates food delivery services globally. Once the deal is finalized, Foodpanda’s local consumers, merchants, and delivery partners will be transitioned to the Uber Eats platform.
The Taiwanese food delivery market is highly competitive, with Uber Eats and Foodpanda dominating the scene. According to recent reports, Foodpanda held a 52% market share from January 2022 to August 2023, while Uber Eats closely followed with 48%. The acquisition is expected to create synergies between the two platforms, combining Uber’s strong presence in northern Taiwan and major urban centers with Foodpanda’s comparative strength in southern Taiwan and smaller cities.
Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, senior vice president of delivery at Uber, expressed enthusiasm about the deal, stating, “Taiwan is a fiercely competitive market, where online food delivery platforms today still represent just a small part of the food delivery landscape. We’re so excited about the opportunity to deliver even greater convenience and value that this transaction would unlock in the years ahead.”
Taiwan’s online food delivery market is projected to reach around $68.5 million by 2029, up from $51.3 million in 2024, making it an attractive market for Uber. Analysts at Bernstein note that Taiwan has a well-established food delivery industry across a concentrated topography, with an average of seven monthly orders per user, surpassing the typical 3-5x seen in other delivery markets.
Meanwhile, Delivery Hero stated that it plans to focus its Foodpanda business on other markets. Niklas Östberg, CEO and co-founder of Delivery Hero, said, “The strength of our Taiwanese business is a testament to the hard work of many teams over the last eight years. In order to build a world-leading service, we have come to the conclusion that we need to focus our resources on other parts of our global footprint, where we feel we can have the largest impact for customers, vendors and riders.”
This acquisition comes at a time when Delivery Hero has been attempting to downsize its operations in Asia. In February, the company terminated talks regarding the potential sale of Foodpanda in selected Southeast Asian markets, following layoffs aimed at streamlining operations in September.
The Uber-Foodpanda deal marks one of the biggest cross-border acquisitions out of Taiwan and underscores the ongoing consolidation and restructuring in the global food delivery market. As companies navigate the challenges of unit economics and strive for better economies of scale, this acquisition could set the stage for further shifts in the competitive landscape of food delivery services in Asia and beyond.
