Uber begins to authorize meal orders in its main application

Just a week after CEO Dara Khosrowshahi had hinted that Uber was experimenting with the cross-promotion of his food delivery service in the company's main application, TechCrunch unearthed exactly what it looks like The company is currently developing a way for customers to place meal delivery orders within the main Uber app.

If a customer does not already have the Uber Eats stand-alone application and resides in one of the hundreds of cities where Eats operates parallel to the call-to-call – but especially to one where there is no neither scooter nor bike, which means New York, Los Angeles, or San Francisco are not included here – the Eats logo now appears in the upper right corner of the main Uber app. By tapping the logo, you will get a fully functional version of the Uber Eats browser, where customers can place an order as they would in the main Eats application.

Uber said that this integration is now active in these markets on 100% of iOS devices, while the deployment of Android has started this week and reaches about 17%. The company refused to share the comments gathered on the integration of Eats. Originally launched in 2014 under the name "UberFresh", Uber Eats was part of the main Uber application until the company finalized it by the end of 2015.

In a conference call with investors, Khosrowshahi said last week that Uber was on the verge of "very, very early" to explore "the many ways in which [Uber’s] company rides can help keep building [its] Eat business, and vice versa, "and said the company had had very" very, very encouraging "returns.

Uber is eager to promote Eats for several reasons. Meals generated by Uber in the first quarter of 2019 generated revenues of $ 536 million. The company thinks that its growth will only grow. "It's a huge category, and some people think the food category may be wider than the rides," Khosrowshahi said last week. The food delivery is indeed so fast that a whole industry of "ghost restaurants" has developed to meet the demand.

Uber also loves Eats because it gives the company a way to enter countries that would otherwise block or interfere with its mobile service. By setting up the catering service in these markets, the company believes that its chances of introducing an increased preference in the future are increasing.

To this end, Uber views Eats as a way to imbue some of the huge losses that are attributable to his cycling activity. And since Eats attracts many new customers who do not yet use Uber for international calls, Uber may end up trying the opposite of this cross-promotion integration. Khosrowshahi said last week that 50% of Eats' customers were not using Uber for the race, which means that the food delivery service is attracting many new users. "These are customers that we can then move to the amusement rides sector," he said.