Uber Eats reveals its plan to conquer the rest of India

Photo credit: All What She Wants

Uber made a big move today that will expand its food-delivery service to 246 cities across India.

Uber Eats is doing this by partnering with Cafe Coffee Day, a massive Indian chain with 1,742 outlets.

Its stores will be used as – to quote Uber – “virtual restaurants.” That means the coffee shops will cook up food that they only sell online via the Uber Eats app.

The company added, “Uber Eats will help Café Coffee Day with data, analytics, and insights to help identify food or cuisines that consumers crave the most. This will enable Café Coffee Day and Uber Eats to launch menu offerings as per evolving consumer trends, for multiple ‘delivery-only’ virtual restaurants.”

Tasty slice

The move comes 15 months after Uber Eats arrived in India, where it was initially only available in Mumbai before spreading to 37 cities. But that figure will balloon into the hundreds once the Café Coffee Day partnership gets rolling in November.

The new menus from the coffee chain will be separate from what’s already available in the delivery app.

Uber Eats is up against Zomato and Swiggy in India. The country is Uber’s largest fast-growing market, after it pulled out of China and Southeast Asia.

Uber Eats brought in US$3 billion in gross sales in 2017, accounting for a tasty eight to 10 percent slice of the ride-hailing firm’s bookings, according to a Financial Times report.