Foodpanda claims top spot in food delivery for Asia-ex China

Singapore

DELIVERY Hero SE's Foodpanda has grown into the biggest food-delivery app in Asia, excluding China, and envisions further expansion in areas such as groceries, said Jakob Angele, its head for the Asia-Pacific region.

"Not only during the Covid period, but also years before Covid, we saw year-after-year multiplying growth rates," Mr Angele said in an interview with Bloomberg Television's David Ingles, Yvonne Man and Rishaad Salamat on Monday. Singapore-based Foodpanda has attained the leadership spot based on both internal and publicly available research, he said.

Foodpanda competes with rivals such as Grab Holdings Inc, Gojek and Deliveroo Plc in an Asian food-delivery market that's benefiting as the pandemic has prompted people to eat out less often. Berlin-based Delivery Hero said in its latest quarterly update that it expects revenue to surge this year as it expands into new Asian markets and adds "dark stores", or warehouses that stock groceries and household goods. Its acquisitions include a controlling stake in South Korean rival Woowa Brothers Corp.

Foodpanda said in February that it will start an online grocery delivery service called Pandamart in Japan, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos this year after launching it in eight Asian countries in 2020.

"The food delivery industry is still a very young industry," Mr Angele said. "We see exciting investment opportunities" in countries like Japan and new areas such as grocery delivery and quick-commerce services, he added. BLOOMBERG