Uber’s subsidiary company, Uber Eats, closed its food delivery service in South Korea onOctober 15. The delivery food company sent an email to its users to announce their business withdrawal.
After Uber, a ridesharing company based in California was founded in 2009, they launched another brand called Uber Eats in August 2014. Uber Eats provides food delivery service where customers can easily order food from any restaurant to which they are registered on the Uber Eats application. As they continued to grow, Uber Eats opened its service in 13 different countries. They entered Seoul, South Korea on August 10, 2017.
Uber Eats did not specifically mention why they decided to close their business in South Korea. Many media outlets concluded that the reason is mainly because of the highly competitive market. Reporter Jiyong Um, from Byline Network, suggested that “according to speculation by delivery industry officials, several reasons for Uber Eats’ pulling out are that the competition on food delivery service in South Korea is highly overheated.”
A survey ‘Delivery Service Trend Report 2019’ conducted in South Korea by Opensurvey, disclosed that over 86.5 percent of participants, out of 1,500 respondents, that they are familiar with Korean food delivery service apps Baemin and Yogiyo. Only 7.6 percent of participants were aware of Uber Eats’ service. 54.6 percent responded they are mainly using Baemin as main food delivery service, and only 0.5 percent responded for Uber Eats. These statistics show that Uber Eats' was not competitive in the delivery market.
Uber Korea commented that “We've tried hard, but our growth was slower than expected. After lots of thought, we made a difficult decision.” Although Uber failed on delivery service they are still looking for another way to participate in the Korean market. The Uber staff commented, “Uber will do our best to focus on our mobility business in South Korea. We will focus on diverse potential.”
Written by Seyong Back | Staff Writer
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