The Silicon Review ^Asia

Uber has put its food delivery business in India on the block again at the price of around $500 million and Zomato is emerging as the front runner. The final deal for UberEats has not been fixed but the current negotiations involve a stock deal for Uber. Discussions with Ant Financial backed Zomato have been going on for several weeks. There have also been some talks with Swiggy, Zomato’s rival but the talks are yet to take shape. “The talks with Zomato are now progressing towards a term-sheet and discussions are more realistic this time around,” said one of the sources from UberEats. Uber is under pressure to return profits as their share prices are down by more than 33 percent from the listing price. For UberEats, the Indian market has been a drag on the company margins and Uber has commented that it will exit markets with low returns on investments. UberEats has already been shut down in South Korea in September this year.

UberEats accumulates about 2, 50,000-3, 00,000 orders in a day in India while Zomato and Swiggy get around 2- 2.5 million orders in a day. Average order value on UberEats is significantly lower at 2 dollars per order as compared to Zomato and Swiggy’s 3-4 dollars.

“We don’t comment on rumours or speculation,” said an Uber spokesperson while Zomato refused to comment. It is an attractive deal for Zomato as it would help it strengthen its market presence in India. It would also gain significant advantage over their competitor Swiggy.