17.5.2019
https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/17/18624623/ubers-eats-foo…
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...Uber Eats has an Uber problem.
As Uber’s stock has fallen below its offering price since it went public last week, some have touted Uber Eats’ rapidly growing revenue as a hopeful sign for the company, which expects to lose about $1 billion in the first quarter of 2019.
But like Uber’s ride service, its food delivery business still isn’t profitable. And Eats offers pretty much the same thing its numerous deep-pocketed competitors do: transporting restaurant food to customers in exchange for a fee. Making things even more challenging is that, similar to its ride-share customers, Eats users aren’t especially loyal.
While Uber is aiming to encroach on giant future markets — where people no longer own cars and where eating in has more substantially disrupted dining out — that goal is a long way off....
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But Uber Eats does have some advantages. Thanks to its main business, it can share technology and has an existing network of drivers. It is also hoping to capitalize on the companies’ 91 million unique ride-sharing, Jump scooter, and Eats customers, though it’s notable that regular Uber, Jump, and Eats all have separate apps.
Unlike many of its peers in both ride-hailing and food delivery, Uber is a global company that aims to be the “Amazon for transportation,” so its ambitions are expansive. Eats is just one of the company’s businesses. And beyond ride-sharing, Uber’s diverse revenue set also includes a shipping platform called Freight, which generated over $125 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2018 (total company revenue that quarter was $3 billion, or 24 times that amount).
“As the platform scales and continues to bundle in different services, Uber could see more stickiness with the consumer,” Hussain said.
But it’s going to cost a lot to get there.