
Delivery Hero, one of the world’s largest takeaway food apps and owner of the Foodora brand, is exiting four markets in Europe and the Asia Pacific amid heightened competition in the sector.
The Berlin-headquartered company said on Thursday it was divesting its Australian, Italian, Netherlands and French operations to focus on higher growth markets.
The withdrawal follows Delivery Hero’s flotation in Frankfurt in June 2017, which raised €1bn.
The Australian arm of Foodora will cease operating on August 20 while Delivery Hero said it is currently in talks about selling the other three businesses, which would remain operating the service for now.
“We operated an extremely small business in Australia and have decided to close our operations there,” said a Delivery Hero spokesman.
“The main reasons being we had a distant position with the number one, and we could not provide the customer an amazing experience given our scale,” he said. “The rationale for the other three markets is similar.
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The food delivery market is expanding rapidly, with the recent entry of UberEats and Amazon Restaurant deliver service. Delivery Hero was the fourth online food delivery portal to float since 2014.