Uber Gets a Liquor License by Buying Drizly

Over the last year, food and grocery delivery services have flourished. One item that isn't included, however, is Alcohol, which is exactly what Drizly specializes in. Uber noticed, and with its food delivery business becoming more important to the bottom line during the pandemic, announced it will acquire Drizly for $1.1B.

Let's have a look at the numbers behind Drizly using our App Intelligence.

Alcohol is a big business. In 2019, alcohol sales totaled $252B in the US. While most of us were locked down in 2020, sales moved from in-person to... by-app, giving Drizly, which launched in 2012, a year to remember.

Downloads, which totaled 700K in 2019, rose to 1.9M in 2020, based on our estimates. Although 2020 started strong, the trend shifted upward in April, going from an average of 2,000 downloads per day across both platforms to 12K in early April.

Downloads eventually slowed down, settling at around 5K/day, twice as many as January of 2020.

Uber's decision to get into the alcohol business shouldn't come as a surprise. 2020 was a truly upside-down year for Uber, which saw its core business tanking and its Uber Eats side, take off.

This is Uber's second acquisition in the delivery space after they bought Postmates last year.

The choice of Drizly is also not a surprise. Although Drizly isn't the only app that offers alcohol delivery, it's currently the most downloaded app that's focused on alcohol delivery in the US.

Uber's core business will eventually recover, but Eats isn't likely to decline. Not with these strategic moves from Uber.

If you've been following Uber for long enough, you know they've transformed a lot since replacing head honchos, and we can see it in their strategy. While true to its core, logistics, this focus on food delivery is a welcome evolution.