Weekly News Wrap: India’s quick commerce boom raises road safety concerns; Hong Kong fund divests Burger King businesses
And Starbucks expands delivery services in China via a Meituan tie-up.
From Reuters:
Indian grocery startups are luring tech-savvy customers with the promise of deliveries within 10 minutes, sparking a boom in "quick commerce", but heating up concerns about road safety as bike riders scramble to meet tight deadlines.
Competition is already intense in India's $600b grocery retailing industry, populated by the likes of Amazon, Walmart's Flipkart and Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance.
Now SoftBank-backed Blinkit and its rival Zepto are racing to hire staff and open stores in their bid to grab a share of the market by offering the convenience of delivery in 10 minutes, far lower than the hours, or days competitors take.
"It's a threat to the larger players," Ashwin Mehta, a lead IT sector analyst at India's Ambit Capital, told Reuters. "If people get used to 10 minutes, those companies offering 24-hour deliveries will be forced to reduce their timelines."
Read more here.
From Reuters:
Private equity firm Affinity Equity Partners is this week launching the sale of its Burger King fast-food businesses in South Korea and Japan, in a deal that could fetch more than $1b, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Hong Kong-based Affinity has appointed Goldman Sachs to run the sale, which is targeting both private equity investors and strategic buyers, said the person. The bank declined to comment.
Affinity bought full control of Burger King South Korea in 2016 for about $170m and a year later acquired the American fast-food brand's Japan franchise.
The South Korean business reported $572m (KRW680b) in revenue in 2021, with adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) at $67m (KRW80b), said the person.
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From CNBC:
Starbucks has expanded its delivery and online services in China through a partnership with Meituan.
The U.S. coffee giant said that customers ordering via Meituan’s app in China will have more customisation options. Members of its customer rewards scheme, called Starbucks Rewards, will receive the same benefits using the Meituan app as they would do using the normal Starbucks app in China.
Starbucks also said that it is the “delivery debut” in China of its Starbucks Reserve range of coffees which it markets as a more premium product.
The two companies have also partnered on more offline experiences.
Read more here.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/18/starbucks-meituan-tie-up-expands-coffee-delivery-in-china.html
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