Hamburg The Dax group Delivery Hero has also examined the takeover of the Finnish competitor Wolt. The CEO Niklas Östberg said on Thursday in a call to the quarterly figures. However, the price expectations were higher than what the Berlin group could have paid.
Doordash has significantly more leeway to buy competitors with its own shares than Delivery Hero: The Americans are worth a good 72 billion dollars on the stock exchange, the Berliners only a good 28 billion euros.
“We looked at the numbers and decided not to take part in the process,” said Östberg. A takeover would have made less sense for Delivery Hero than for Doordash, since the Berlin-based company is already active in Europe, he explained.
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However, the acquisition has an impact on Delivery Hero. How quickly the Dax group can come into the profit zone depends on how expensive the global advertising battle with competitors is, said Östberg. After that, Delivery Hero has to plan its own advertising spending. It is unclear how much Doordash will now invest in Europe.
Östberg himself does not want to get involved in an advertising race, at least in Germany. He emphasized once again that the return to the home market under the Foodpanda brand, which has been initiated this year, will primarily serve to be present on the market at the Group’s headquarters. It gives the business ten to 15 years to develop – significantly more than in other markets.
First of all, it is about improving the offer in Germany in order to slowly convince customers. After Berlin, the app can already be used in Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich – but in some cases only for people who collect them themselves in restaurants. Three more German cities are to be added shortly.
Despite the Wolt takeover, Doordash is initially also launching its own brand in Germany. The Americans want to present corresponding plans next Tuesday. The group has advertised positions in Stuttgart, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne and Munich for a long time. Apparently Doordash does not want to wait until the Wolt takeover is completed in the first half of 2022.
This makes Germany a playground for delivery services: In addition to the German providers Delivery Hero, Flink and Gorillas, the Turkish delivery service Getir, Uber Eats from the USA and Picnic from the Netherlands are entering the market. In addition, Bringmeister and Knuspr are two providers with a Czech mother and several smaller providers.
Delivery Hero confirms forecast
Around the globe, Delivery Hero dares to do a little more despite reopened restaurants. It is expected that sales for the year as a whole will be at the upper end of the range of 6.4 to 6.7 billion euros, said the Dax group. Last year, the proceeds were 2.8 billion euros – with a loss of 1.4 billion euros.
Delivery Hero continues to write deep red figures, but does not publish the shortfall in the third quarter. The Delivery Hero share rose slightly according to the numbers.
Delivery Hero is now feeling that people are eating more frequently in restaurants again. Growth flattened out from June to September. Although sales rose by 89 percent to 1.8 billion euros, the plus in the first half of the year was still 138 percent. Österg said the difference is also due to a base effect: At the beginning of the corona crisis, restaurants in the Middle East were completely closed, so that the group was unable to deliver in some countries. Therefore, growth in 2020 was mathematically higher.
The company, which is active in 50 countries, continued to invest heavily in the third quarter. The expansion of the warehouse network was accelerated. At the end of September, Delivery Hero operated 861 such locations in order to be able to deliver food as well as restaurant food.
Company boss Niklas Östberg described the recent entry into the lightning delivery service Gorillas from Berlin as well as the takeover of the marketplace app Hugo in Central America and the Caribbean as a strategic expansion. Delivery Hero will focus on “delivering everything our customers need directly and locally”.
With agency material
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