At the start of this month, DoorDash made the official announcement that it had completed its acquisition of Deliveroo.
Based in London in Great Britain, Deliveroo is an award-winning delivery service founded in 2013, and working with around 176,000 beloved restaurants, grocers, and retail partners. It also has more than 130,000 riders under its wing, providing the best on-demand delivery experiences in places where it is present.
In 2024, Deliveroo has served approximately 700 million monthly active consumers. Currently, it operates across nine countries, specifically in Belgium, France, Italy, Ireland, Kuwait, Qatar, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates, aside from just in Great Britain.
But what really is inside this acquisition? Ridesharing Forum explores.
Well, basically, this deal, which DoorDash availed of entirely via cash, gives it a giant and strong foothold in key European and Middle Eastern markets, originally belonging to Deliveroo. The result will be that it reshapes the competition in those regions.
First, it will expand DoorDash’s global footprint. The acquisition has already been expanding DoorDash’s international presence. Previously, DoorDash focused on the Americas, but now that it has acquired Deliveroo, it is expanding into the latter’s markets, including those mentioned above.
That means DoorDash is already operating in a whopping 45 markets internationally, with most of them located in Europe. It is also interesting to note how this acquisition gives DoorDash immediate entry into the Middle East, a new region for DoorDash, further strengthening its foothold in the competitive European markets.
Secondly, this acquisition will better align the operations and services of those companies. Previously, you’ve got two different platforms with different scales. Deliveroo was serving seven million active monthly users, while DoorDash had around 43 million. DoorDash could leverage Deliveroo’s extensive network of restaurants, grocery stores, and retail partners, in addition to its own network of riders.
This partnership could also signal an attempt to reduce dependencies over restaurant delivery margins. In official news, DoorDash clarified and stated that Deliveroo, the company it has acquired, would continue to operate as a local eCommerce platform, so it remains to be seen whether this aspect would be fully integrated into the global systems of DoorDash.
Third and last, it is inevitable for this acquisition not to reshape market competition. In business, competition is crucial.
The completion of this acquisition brings new changes to the competitive dynamics of food deliveries in Europe by the consolidation of market share.
Areas like potential overlaps, and the possibilities of those two brands operating separately are being taken care of.
Nonetheless, the deal is seen to influence the pricing and service standards across various markets, as smaller competitors emerge to contend with a much larger, more dominant rivals.
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