Kasia Davies
Research expert covering the German market
Delivery Hero - statistics & facts
Success can be difficult in the online food delivery business, due in part to the relatively small profit margins and fierce competition. The Berlin-based company Delivery Hero, founded in 2007, is now introducing some changes to increase their profitability. In 2023, the company incurred net losses totaling around 2.3 billion euros.
In the past nine years, Delivery Hero has seen their annual revenue go from 42 million euros in 2013 to about 9.9 billion in 2023. Although the company was founded in Germany, it has achieved the most popularity in Asia. The country which generated the most revenue for the company was Korea, with 2.4 billion euros in 2023. This is perhaps in part down to their quick commerce (q-commerce) strategy, which comes with a promise to deliver goods in under an hour. The company, however, has recently seen some financial challenges with net losses and the stock value decreasing by around 44 percent compared to the previous year. Perhaps in order to cut down on expenditures the company has taken new measures including closing some tech offices in Turkey and Taiwan as well as decreasing the size of the workforce.
In May 2024, it was announced that an agreement had been reached for Uber to buy foodpanda, a food delivery service in Taiwan belonging to Delivery Hero, for 950 million U.S. dollars. Although foodpanda was the most popular food delivery service, UberEats also has a strong presence in Taiwan and therefore, is in a good position to take over. Despite this agreement being reached it is not completely a done deal as due to Uber’s strong presence in the delivery market authorities must still assess whether this would be a regulatory risk. In addition, Uber bought newly issued shares worth 300 million U.S. dollars in Delivery Hero which will help the company’s liquidity.
The online food delivery market is a relatively new industry but despite this, it has seen rapid growth and restaurant-to-consumer delivery is expected to make a revenue of around 2.8 billion dollars in Germany in 2024. The food delivery app, Lieferando.de was the most downloaded food delivery app with around 2.4 million downloads. The takeout app with the next highest number of downloads was Uber Eats with just over 1.14 million downloads, which is less than half of the downloads of Lieferando showing them to be ahead of the competition and thus, also ahead of Delivery Hero. Among non-German customers, Lieferando is perhaps better known as Just Eat Takeaway, as Lieferando is just the name for the German version of the food delivery platform. In 2023, the company had a global revenue of over 5.2 billion euros, and over half a billion euros of this revenue was from the German market.
It is not known whether the foodpanda deal will be approved by the authorities and what impact this will have on Delivery Hero’s business. It will be the financial development of the company over the next few years that will indicate whether the decisions that the management have taken were successful or not.
About Delivery Hero
In the past nine years, Delivery Hero has seen their annual revenue go from 42 million euros in 2013 to about 9.9 billion in 2023. Although the company was founded in Germany, it has achieved the most popularity in Asia. The country which generated the most revenue for the company was Korea, with 2.4 billion euros in 2023. This is perhaps in part down to their quick commerce (q-commerce) strategy, which comes with a promise to deliver goods in under an hour. The company, however, has recently seen some financial challenges with net losses and the stock value decreasing by around 44 percent compared to the previous year. Perhaps in order to cut down on expenditures the company has taken new measures including closing some tech offices in Turkey and Taiwan as well as decreasing the size of the workforce.
Business deals
In May 2024, it was announced that an agreement had been reached for Uber to buy foodpanda, a food delivery service in Taiwan belonging to Delivery Hero, for 950 million U.S. dollars. Although foodpanda was the most popular food delivery service, UberEats also has a strong presence in Taiwan and therefore, is in a good position to take over. Despite this agreement being reached it is not completely a done deal as due to Uber’s strong presence in the delivery market authorities must still assess whether this would be a regulatory risk. In addition, Uber bought newly issued shares worth 300 million U.S. dollars in Delivery Hero which will help the company’s liquidity.
Who is their competition?
The online food delivery market is a relatively new industry but despite this, it has seen rapid growth and restaurant-to-consumer delivery is expected to make a revenue of around 2.8 billion dollars in Germany in 2024. The food delivery app, Lieferando.de was the most downloaded food delivery app with around 2.4 million downloads. The takeout app with the next highest number of downloads was Uber Eats with just over 1.14 million downloads, which is less than half of the downloads of Lieferando showing them to be ahead of the competition and thus, also ahead of Delivery Hero. Among non-German customers, Lieferando is perhaps better known as Just Eat Takeaway, as Lieferando is just the name for the German version of the food delivery platform. In 2023, the company had a global revenue of over 5.2 billion euros, and over half a billion euros of this revenue was from the German market.
It is not known whether the foodpanda deal will be approved by the authorities and what impact this will have on Delivery Hero’s business. It will be the financial development of the company over the next few years that will indicate whether the decisions that the management have taken were successful or not.
