Back in April of 2020, when the pandemic hit and forced the US into lockdowns, demand for food-delivery apps hit new highs. DoorDash was the winner in the US, doubling its downloads instantly.
Grubhub also grew, and so did Uber Eats (and even Postmates)!
But fast forward two years later and this excitement has (almost) all but cooled off. For some.
Things reopening, consolidation in the market, and most notably the end of free delivery and the introduction of fees (gasp!), have caused demand to shift.
Each of the popular apps saw demand change in different ways. Our estimates show that Uber Eats continued to grow steadily, Grubhub lost about 73% of downloads, Postmates beat it by losing about 78%, and market leader DoorDash was about 37% down – but still ahead in terms of absolute downloads.
That's as of the end of June, because July was something else!
All apps, except for Postmates, jumped significantly in July!
According to our estimates, DoorDash and Grubhub got very close to their April 2020 numbers, adding 3.2M and 1.3M downloads, respectively. Uber Eats also jumped but not as high, adding 1.7M new downloads. Even Postmates grew in July, but very little.
Postmates has been dying for a while, ever since it was acquired by Uber, which is an interesting strategy for retaining the users without cannibalizing Uber Eats' lunch. Pun partially intended.
The one thing to keep in mind here is that most of these apps are spending a lot on user acquisition and retention, and much of it comes in the form of one-off discounts. This isn't a sustainable strategy and I expect it to end at some point.
I think that point isn't too far, considering today's investment climate.
China is waging war on messaging apps. Not all, but the most popular ones. Late Thursday night, China asked Apple to re...
Success for a streaming app isn't a matter of luck but rather content (and looooots of marketing). That's why Max (HBO's...