Uber Tweaks App to Further Integrate Food With Rides
28 Abril 2021 - 10:34AM
Noticias Dow Jones
By Preetika Rana
Uber Technologies Inc. is adding features to its app that will
further entwine the rides and food-delivery businesses as it steers
toward a future when a vaccinated public starts traveling, going to
work and potentially ordering-in less frequently.
One feature enables passengers to book and pick up meals while
en route somewhere in an Uber. The San Francisco-based company said
its rides app will ping passengers requesting trips from airports,
asking whether they would like food delivered through its Eats app
wherever they are headed.
Uber's booming food-delivery business helped it offset the
downturn in its core rides operations amid widespread lockdowns
last year. The changes announced Wednesday underscore how Uber
plans to navigate a future where food-delivery orders are expected
to slow as consumers can eat out again while its rides business
takes off. Uber's mobility business, which includes its core
ride-hailing operations, has recovered from pandemic lows; March
was the best month for that unit since the health crisis
struck.
The company is betting the new features will make it easier to
drive business to Eats as consumers take more trips. More than 10%
of Uber Eats' new users in the fourth quarter navigated to it from
the rides app.
Other apps are also retooling their business for customers and
restaurants in the face of an expected downturn. DoorDash Inc., the
biggest food-delivery company by market share in the U.S., said
Tuesday it is changing the way it charges restaurants to deliver
their food, marking a shift in a business model that has met with
increasing pushback.
Despite record revenue last year, delivery is a money-losing
business for Uber and its competitors. Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub
Inc. forayed into delivering items including groceries and alcohol
during the pandemic to bolster higher-margin offerings.
Uber said another change, starting in June, would enable people
in certain cities across the U.S., U.K., Canada, Taiwan and
Australia to combine their food and grocery orders. Users can order
food from a restaurant while also ordering groceries from a nearby
store. The move helps Eats drive up its order size while reducing
its labor cost per delivery--both key to its future
profitability.
Uber separately said it struck a partnership with Walgreens
Boots Alliance Inc. that would enable people in the U.S. to
schedule vaccine appointments and ride to and from the appointments
through its app. It also expanded its rental-car partnerships
nationwide, including rolling out a service in which drivers take
rented vehicles to consumers' doorsteps.
Write to Preetika Rana at preetika.rana@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 28, 2021 11:19 ET (15:19 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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