SAN FRANCISCO—Two San Francisco based delivery services are merging together; Uber announced on July 6 that it has acquired Postmates. Uber bought Postmates for $2.65 billion in stock. The company is trying to make an effort to provide a wider range of items and services to customer’s doorsteps.
With this acquisition, Uber has become the second-largest restaurant delivery service in the U.S. in terms of stock market share, behind DoorDash Inc. According to a survey done by Second Measure, DoorDash is the leader among food delivery apps, with a market share of 44 percent. Uber Eats comes in second, with a 23 percent market share, Grubhub follows with 22 percent, and Postmates comes in last at 8 percent. The takeover is expected to help Uber gain ground against privately-held DoorDash, which is current the leading food delivery app in the United States.
A source told San Francisco News that Uber Eats and Postmates will remain as separate services, and will be separately managed by Uber Eats head Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, and Postmate’s Chief Executive Officer Bastian Lehmann. But they declined to comment about further details regarding the deal. The acquisition is simply a business acquisition for Uber, and will not affect customer’s experience with the app or services.
Uber’s successful acquisition of Postmates follows a failed attempt in June to acquire GrubHub Inc., which was eventually acquired by Netherland’s based JustEatTakeaway.com for $7.3 billion.
