After Uber, Ola is joining the sector of food deliveries that has previously been taken advantage of by Uber, Amazon, Flipkart and more.
While much could be said about their success in this sector, seeing as it is a very difficult one to actually make a mark in, Ola has recently acquired Foodpanda, an already existing food delivery service in order to make their break in this sector.
The news broke today only that Ola will be taking over Foodpanda India from its parent company DeliveryHero in exchange for an unknown amount of shares in the Ola company.
As per various news sites, Ola will apparently be investing about $200 million into the Indian division of Foodpanda and also finding a replacement for the Indian head of Foodpanda, Saurabh Kochar, who has “decided to move on to pursue other opportunities”. In the meantime, the Ola founding partner will work as the active CEO until a candidate for the position is found.
Ola After UberEats?
Early this year in 2017, Uber unveiled its entrance into the food delivery sector with its own subdivision called UberEats which operates in a similar manner to Swiggy, Foodpanda and more wherein they charge the restaurant a small service fee in return of providing them with a third party delivery service.
A lot of restaurants these days, especially the startup food businesses are indulging in such third party services since many do not have enough resources to have their own fleet of deliverers, transportation and more.
This just seems more cost effective and profitable to both restaurants and the 3rd party service.
And while UberEats was brought out with much fanfare, it has not really been able to make that big of an impact as it would have liked to. Similarly, with Flipkart that flopped even worse than Uber seeing as how it has no mention anywhere, food delivery services have proven to be a tricky market to settle in.
Even Ola before this deal had their own food delivery business by the name of Ola Café that bombed pretty hard and had to be shut down eventually.
Read More: Flipkart To Enter The Challenging Sector Of Food Delivery & Here’s Why It Might Fail
Much Competition To Fight With
However, much cannot be said about this partnership as already Foodpanda India was struggling due to intense competition from the more established services like Zomato and Swiggy.
Having dropped down to the 3rd spot, Foodpanda India has much to work towards in order to become a frequently used service instead of one that people go to when nothing else works.
Image Credits: Google Images
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