Uber to foray into India's food delivery space with UberEATS, begins hiring: Report

After the success of its taxi-hailing app business in India, US-based Uber has decided to foray into the country’s food delivery space with the launch of UberEATS likely in the April-June quarter, The Economic Times said in a  report. To jump start its new business here, the San Francisco-based cab aggregator has begun hiring city general managers, city-level restaurant operations managers as well as branding and sales heads in major cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai and Gurugram, the report said. [caption id=“attachment_3342896” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Reuters[/caption] The entry into food delivery space by UberEats comes at a time when existing companies in the space such as Zomato and Swiggy are aggressively strengthening their business by raising additional funds from investors. Uber’s new initiative in India will be headed by former McKinsey executive Manan Javeri, who joined the company two years ago, the ET report said. “We are currently in the process of setting up a team dedicated to the UberEATS business in India, this includes internal transfers, primarily experts in marketplace management as well as external hires,” the report quoted Allen Penn, Uber’s Aia Pacific head as saying. “From a hiring perspective, we are looking at bringing some of the best talent in the restaurant industry, including successful entrepreneurs, people with experience in logistics management and various other aspects of the food delivery business,” Penn said. The Travis Kalanick firm plans to first launch its service in one city by June-end quarter and later expand the operations to six cities by this year end. Already, UberEATS is present in 62 cities across the globe. In India, Uber is engaged in a stiff battle with its rival Ola to grab a bigger share of the country’s booming taxi market. Recently, the Bengaluru-headquartered Ola said it is focussing on building “more sustainable” and profitable solutions to grow its market share in the on-demand transportation market in India. Uber has said its services are present in 29 Indian cities and it has more than 250,000 drivers on its platform. However, several of its drivers have returned dozens of leased cars early after the company cut incentives. Uber had planned to buy 15,000 new cars last year and lease them out in a bid to attract more drivers - a strategy it has used in other markets - but it suspended the scheme for a while in December after leasing just a third of that total.