{"id":838402,"date":"2025-09-26T18:12:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T16:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=838402"},"modified":"2025-09-26T18:14:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T16:14:18","slug":"international-giant-coming-after-checkers-sixty60-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/838402\/international-giant-coming-after-checkers-sixty60-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"International giant coming after Checkers Sixty60 in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Uber Technologies sees its grocery and retail deliveries growing faster than expected, underscoring the company\u2019s effort to catch up with rival services\u2014including in markets like South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The company expects non-restaurant deliveries to hit an annual run rate of $12.5 billion in gross bookings by the end of 2025, a spokesperson said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s 25% more than the $10 billion run rate it shared\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/s23.q4cdn.com\/407969754\/files\/doc_earnings\/2025\/q1\/transcript\/Uber-Q1-25-Prepared-Remarks.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">in May<\/a>. Uber is providing a projection now as the actual financial results for full-year 2025 won\u2019t be disclosed until Feb 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The accelerating growth points to ongoing momentum at Uber\u2019s delivery unit, which contributes nearly half of gross bookings and has been expanding at a faster clip than its signature ride-hailing business over the past three quarters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi attributed the delivery segment\u2019s strong performance to \u201crobust growth\u201d in grocery and retail orders when the company\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/s23.q4cdn.com\/407969754\/files\/doc_earnings\/2025\/q2\/transcript\/Uber-Q2-25-Prepared-Remarks.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>\u00a0second-quarter earnings in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Though Uber is a leader in the US rideshare market, it has acknowledged that it can do more to deepen consumer habits on the delivery side, especially in the competitive grocery and retail space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Khosrowshahi said in August that Uber still has \u201ca long runway to drive further adoption\u201d in delivery, noting that 75% of its rideshare customers have not tried ordering grocery and retail goods from the Uber app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Currently, Uber sees \u201ca lot of usage for last-minute or urgent orders,\u201d said Rebecca Payne, group product manager for grocery and retail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That may include missing recipe ingredients or miscellaneous items that travelers forgot to pack. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sundays at 18h00 is the peak time for grocery orders on Uber, the company added, with the most popular items being fresh fruit and vegetables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Susan Anderson, the company\u2019s global head of delivery, is expected to provide more updates about the business during a keynote speech at the annual Groceryshop conference in Las Vegas on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uber has made a concerted effort in recent years to expand the delivery use case for its users. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Thursday, the company\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.uber.com\/newsroom\/grocery-product\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced<\/a><strong>\u00a0it will offer weekly discounts on local fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy<\/strong> in the US, Canada, UK,<strong> South Africa<\/strong>, France, Japan, Taiwan and Spain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It also released new app features to improve the shopping experience, including live order editing and the ability to list preferred backups when first-choice items are unavailable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On that point, it pledged to offer improved suggestions in the future for alternate items that would be based on factors like price, nutrition and past orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tough competition in South Africa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Checkers-Sixty60.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Checkers-Sixty60-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-799916\" srcset=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Checkers-Sixty60-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Checkers-Sixty60-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Checkers-Sixty60-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Checkers-Sixty60.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Uber Eats faces intense competition from rival delivery platforms in South Africa, including Mr D, which partners with Pick n Pay, Woolies Dash, and Checkers Sixty60.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>SPAR announced a partnership with Uber Eats in June to expand its 2U online delivery service, offering access to SPAR stores and Tops! products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the service also has wider access to other retailers, including those outsde of the grocery space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite Uber&#8217;s ambitions to have a bigger impact in the grocery delivery space, it faces an uphill battle against Checkers Sixty60, which dominates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Reporting its annual results for the year ending June 2025, the Shoprite group recorded Sixty60\u2019s sales increasing by 47.7%, equating to R18.9 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Outside of sales growth, the group saw improvements in the Sixty60 customer experience, evidenced by its 94.0% on-time deliveries and 96.9% order fulfilment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>World Wide Worx\u2019s Online Retail in South Africa report revealed that the Sixty60 grocery delivery platform is more popular among shoppers than its main competitors in the on-demand delivery space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sixty60 launched in 2020 amid the Covid pandemic and lockdowns and very quickly carved out a significant lead in the market, leaving competitors scrambling to catch up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The group has consistently expanded its reach and available products, extending even beyond groceries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shoprite claims that Sixty60 currently has more than 80% market share of on-demand grocery delivery in South Africa\u2014a position it is unlikely to give up without a fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>With Bloomberg<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Uber Technologies is leaning heavily into grocery deliveries in several major territories, including South Africa, where it has just launched new &#8216;Fresh Days&#8217; discounts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":708018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[7520,6457],"class_list":["post-838402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-shoprite","tag-uber"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838402"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":838404,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838402\/revisions\/838404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}