Amazon in talks to acquire UberEats India biz

For the past couple of months, UberEats has been reportedly looking out for a better deal to sell its loss-making Indian business. After its talk hit rough weather with food delivery major Swiggy, now UberEats is in talks with e-commerce major Amazon for a possible buyout.

The US-based e-comm behemoth, also said to be interested in the deal, is in the initial stage of a possible alliance with UberEats.

The deal, as per close sources to the development, will allow Amazon to enter another service segment- food delivery and may add another offering in its Prime membership program.

It will help Amazon add more use cases and transaction volumes for its loyalty scheme said Business Standard report quoting sources.

There is no detail on the valuation of UberEats for ongoing talks. Though, Ubereats may lookout for $300 million valuations for its Indian unit, added sources.

However, in April, the talks between Swiggy and UberEats fell through over its valuations and share stake. Uber had insisted on getting over 20 per cent stake whereas Swiggy agreed to dilute only half of the claimed stakes by Uber.

Uber, which had gone public recently, aims to curb losses through the deal. As per an estimate, Ubereats has been losing about $15-20 million a month in India.

Started in May 2017 in India, UberEats claims to do around 1.5-2 lakh delivery a day with a gross sales run-rate of $200 million. It is reported to have over 30,000 delivery executives employed in 32 cities.

In India, UberEats faces stiff competition from Swiggy and Zomato, who dominate the food delivery space. As per last reported figure, Swiggy had delivered around 1.5 million orders a day while Zomato came a close second at little over a million orders every day.