Deliveroo’s German Retreat Hands Takeaway.com a Monopoly Position

(Bloomberg) -- Deliveroo, a food-delivery service backed by Amazon.com Inc., is abruptly pulling out of Germany after striving for four years in the cutthroat market for meals delivered by speedy cyclists.

The decision, announced at short notice at the start of the week, underscores the increasingly brutal competition tearing through the industry, where delivery companies are merging, closing or retrenching to make ends meet.

With Deliveroo gone, that leaves Takeaway.com NV as the lone player in Europe’s biggest economy. The Dutch giant has been busy consolidating its position, buying Delivery Hero SE’s German operations last year to end an expensive rivalry in the country.

Elsewhere in Europe, it’s still a crowded space. In markets including Spain, France, Italy and the U.K., Deliveroo, Just Eat Plc. and Uber Eats are engaged in a three-way food fight.

The situation in Germany -- where consumers don’t order as frequently as their counterparts in the U.K. -- may seem like an anomaly, but it might just be a sign of things to come. Delivery Hero has already given up on western Europe and now enjoys unrivaled dominance in countries including Turkey, Greece and Croatia.

Takeaway’s CEO Jitse Groen has said large markets can sustain only one player, and he’s busy building an empire based on that premise.

To contact the reporters on this story: Stefan Nicola in Berlin at snicola2@bloomberg.net;Demetrios Pogkas in London at dpogkas@bloomberg.net;Diana Gomes in London at dgomes8@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Benedikt Kammel at bkammel@bloomberg.net

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