US on-demand car service firm Uber is set to bring its UberEats food delivery service to Ireland this year, in a move which could see the first home delivery of McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme doughnuts to Irish customers.
The San Francisco headquartered company confirmed on Monday that while it does not have an exact launch date for its Irish offering, it plans to launch here in 2018.
A spokesman for the online food ordering and delivery platform said: “We’re really excited that soon we’ll be able to offer our Uber Eats app to consumers and restaurants in Ireland. Uber Eats has proved hugely popular in more than 200 cities around the world and we know that Dubliners have already been downloading the app in anticipation.”
The arrival of UberEats will see the platform go head to head with Deliveroo, which came to Ireland in early 2015. It has since linked up with 430 restaurants, including Eddie Rockets and Nandos, to offer a delivery service by bike across Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway, with a fleet of 900 riders. Last year Deliveroo said that it added € 15 million to the sale of its restaurant clients and their suppliers, and that it receives about 400 job applications a week. Delivery companies like Deliveroo and UberEats typically take a cut of about 30 per cent of the amount spent by the customer on food.
Uber Eats said it will work with delivery couriers who use bikes or motorcycles to deliver food in an average of 30 minutes from when you order. In the UK, the service has linked up with a host of restaurant and food chains including McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme , which is due to open in Ireland later this year.
As well as enabling resturants to sell meals “beyond their real estate”, Uber says that by linking up with its platform it also allows restaurants access to its data insights, which can help “fuel their growth”.
Launched by peer-to-peer carsharing platform Uber back in 2014, UberEats is now present in 200 cities - and was profitable in 45 of them last year. The company moved into Europe in 2016, and since then has been steadily growing its presence, ahead of a planned group IPO next year.
As well as Ireland, Uber told the Financial Times on Monday that it also has plans to open this year in Egypt, Kenya, Ukraine, Romania and the Czech Republic, in addition to more than 40 new cities in the UK and 35 new cities in France.
Uber already operates a service centre in Limerick, supporting its business across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, which will employ up to 300 people when fully operational.
Companies like UberEats and Deliveroo have come under fire of late for employig workers via the “gig economy”, which means that they can end up earning substantially less than if they were employed on a normal contract. While the benefit is that they can choose their hours, and Deliveroo for example promisses earnings of up to €120 a day, workers may end up earning considerably less. |