Zomato Uber Eats Deal: Was It All For Brand Value?

Industry experts have been questioning Zomato’s decision of acquiring loss-making Uber Eats India for $350 Mn. However, it is believed that Zomato’s was not interested in revenues but probably went ahead with the deal because of Uber Eats’ popularity. And now a recent survey by British Internet-based market research group, YouGov, also highlighted the same.

Interestingly, Uber’s food delivery arm — Uber Eats India gained the most points in the survey. While Uber Eats didn’t make it to the top 10, it increased its points from 12.9 in 2018, to 24.9 in 2019.

The popularity of Uber Eats among users can also be seen in their responses which sparked over microblogging site Twitter in favour of the company after the acquisition. Many users shared their grievance on the microblogging site highlighting that the company was better than its competitors — Zomato and Swiggy. For users of Uber Eats, factors such as additional taxes, the user interface of the mobile application, and above all the whole delivery experience were far better than Zomato and Swiggy.

YouGov also came out with a list of top 10 brands that have created a positive impact on Indian users. With an overall score of 54.3, the US-based tech giant Google emerged as the top brand having a positive impact on users in India. According to the list, Whatsapp and YouTube retain their second and third spots with scores of 54.0 and 51.8. Although users spend hours on social media platforms such as Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram, these sites were only able to get a feature at the bottom of the list. While Instagram was at the ninth spot, Facebook was placed at the tenth position in the list.

Amid diversification into other segments and discount wars, Swiggy managed to move up two positions, from sixth to fourth. Zomato also noted improvement and was ranked seventh.

While US-based ecommerce giant Amazon remains at the fifth spot this year as well, its competitor Flipkart got the eight position in the 2019 list. Among the other Indian companies, online travel aggregator Makemytrip lost two spots and moved to the sixth position from the fourth position in 2018.

For the survey, YouGov measured the public’s perception of brands on a daily basis across a range of metrics. The rankings are compiled using numerous scores from the data collected throughout the year. The score measures factors such as whether people have heard anything positive or negative about a brand during the previous two weeks. Notably, 260 brands were categorised in YouGov’s survey.

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