UberEats Will Leave India Soon

India has given Uber cash diarrhea

indi.ca
The Startup

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The conjoined laddus of doom. Uber loses money in India, on Eats, and most of all on India Eats

Update: As of January 20th, 2020, UberEats has left India. The business was sold to Zomato in an all-stock deal.

Like a hostage situation, Dara Khosrowshahi is rapidly blinking in earnings calls, signaling that he’ll pull Eats out of India soon. If you want to say HELP ME in investor-speak, here’s how:

“We’re going to shoot to get to number one and number two in every market that we’re in. If we [can’t] make it to that level, we’ll look to dispose, or will get out of the market.”

and later:

Right now in India, we’re the #3

You read between the lines.

From Quartz India

UberEats won third place in India after Foodpanda drowned themselves in a flood of Rs. 9 milkshakes. UberEats can discount and die or stay still and die, but they’re going to die. The discounting and operational moat around the Swiggy/Zomato duopoly is just too strong to resist. To that end, Uber has already discussed selling the Eats business to Swiggy, Zomato, Amazon and now Zomato again.

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indi.ca
The Startup

Indrajit (Indi) Samarajiva is a Sri Lankan writer. Follow me at www.indi.ca, or just email me at indi@indi.ca.