Foodpanda Is Selling Its Food Business in Southeast Asia. Grab Is a Potential Buyer

Monopoly, monopoly, monopoly. We’ve seen this with Uber, now it’s going to happen with Foodpanda

Foodpanda’s Southeast Asia division has announced on CNBC even more layoffs. Their claim was to be “more agile”.

“Our company priority right now is to become leaner, more efficient and even more agile. To do this, we need to streamline our operations so we can take on a more structured approach for the coming days,” Jakob Sebastian Angele, APAC CEO of Foodpanda, said on Thursday in a letter shared with employees seen by CNBC.

This is the third phase of layoffs since September 2022, followed by job cuts on February 2023. The delivery service’s parent company, Germany-based Delivery Hero, has also announced its plans to sell its APAC division. One of these is Grab, according to German outlet WirtschaftsWoche, which already has a competing food delivery service alongside its ride-hailing service. If Grab acquires Foodpanda, this will be the second time they have absorbed a competitor. The first was with Uber with their ride-hailing service back in 2017.

The acquisition affects not just the Philippines but also other Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Cambodia.

Grab is the current market leader in the Southeast Asian food delivery market, accumulating 54% of the shares while Foodpanda trailed behind at 19%. Gojek, another delivery service provider, had 12% market share.

Aside from Grab, Jonathan Woo mentioned that there are other players that could buy out Foodpanda APAC, one of these is GoTo.

Grab is yet to comment about the buyout.

Source: CNBC