Apr 30 (Nikkei) - Food delivery companies are offering steep discounts during Japan's Golden Week holiday, as they fight for a slice an industry that is growing rapidly, partly due to the new coronavirus outbreak.
Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing, which quietly launched a food delivery service in Osaka in early April, plans to make a splash with 50% discounts on orders from Wednesday through May 6. A person close to the company said it would launch the campaign having partnerships with about 1,500 restaurants, far more than when Uber Eats, the food delivery arm of U.S. rival Uber Technologies, launched in Japan in 2016 with a few hundred restaurants.
Demae-can, the Japanese leader, meanwhile, has partnered with at least four local governments, as well as Tokyo's Shibuya district, to subsidize part of the cost of deliveries. At a news conference in Kobe last week, Rie Nakamura, Demae-can's president, said she hopes the campaign will create "an opportunity for restaurants to make delivery another pillar of their business."
Japan's $133 billion restaurant industry has been largely separate from the food delivery business: Only about 5% of restaurants have their own delivery fleets.
That has until recently left the country without a major player like Uber in the U.S., Meituan-Dianping in China or Baedal Minjok in South Korea. But the coronavirus outbreak may be a game-changer, as citizens are asked to stay home until May 6 under the Japanese government's nationwide state of emergency. Demae-can has seen orders jump 21% from a year from a year earlier in March.
