Uber Technologies UBER reached an agreement with Delivery Hero, a Germany-based firm, for taking over the latter’s foodpanda business in Taiwan for $950 million in cash. The deal to acquire foodpanda Taiwan is expected to close in the first half of 2025 subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions. Until then, Delivery Hero will continue to operate its foodpanda business. The deal is one of the largest-ever international acquisitions in Taiwan.

Separately, the companies agreed on Uber purchasing $300 million in newly issued ordinary shares of Delivery Hero. Post-closure, foodpanda’s local consumers, merchants and delivery partners will be transitioned to Uber Eats, the company’s food delivery unit.  After the completion of this buyout, both entities’ complementary merchant, delivery partner and consumer bases will feature in a single app.

With Uber’s ridesharing businesses struggling particularly in the United States and Latin America, the decision to expand its food delivery business in Asia is a prudent one.  We remind investors that during the pandemic, when ride volumes were very low, Uber’s delivery business had kept it afloat. Even in the post-pandemic scenario, the company’s food delivery unit remains in good shape as the thirst for placing order online is rampant among people.

In first-quarter 2024, UBER, currently carrying Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), reported loss.Its guidance for second-quarter 2024 gross bookings was disappointing. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Let’s take a look at the first-quarter performances of other companies from the same industry.

Lyft Inc. LYFT reported earnings of 15 cents per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 9 cents and improved year over year. Revenues of $1,277.2 million also outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1,170.1 million and grew year over year.

Lyft’s adjusted EBITDA was $59.4 million, up from $22.7 million in the year-ago quarter. The adjusted EBITDA margin (calculated as the percentage of gross bookings) in the reported quarter was 1.6%.

Alphabet’s GOOGL earnings of $1.89 per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 26.8%. The figure rose 61.5% year over year. Revenues of $80.54 billion increased 15% year over year (16% at constant currency).

Net revenues, excluding total traffic acquisition costs (the portion of revenues shared with Google’s partners, and the amount paid to distribution partners and others who direct traffic to Google’s website), were $67.6 billion, which surpassed the consensus mark of $66.04 billion. The figure rose 16.4% on a year-over-year basis.