Mr Groen is a reluctant apostle of black magic. He once said of his efforts to expand beyond the Netherlands, “It’s horrible. We’ve spent 100 times more money in Germany than I thought I’d ever be able to spend.” Takeaway’s deal with Just Eat highlights the conviction that consolidation is the only way to make the sums add up.
格倫先生是一個不情愿的黑魔法傳道者。他曾在談到自己在荷蘭之外擴張的努力時說，“這太可怕了。我們在德國花的錢比我想象的要多100倍。”外賣與Just Eat的交易突顯出一種信念，即整合是實現盈利的唯一途徑。
The food-delivery business can be split into two camps: mostly profitable veterans and loss-making newcomers. The veterans, founded at the start of the century, are led by publicly traded Grubhub in America, and Just Eat and Takeaway in Europe. The trio are collectively worth $18bn or so. They account for the largest share of the market, offering customers online access to restaurants that already have their own delivery services, such as pizza joints, sushi bars and Chinese restaurants. Their relatively simple business model, in which they take a cut of the bill from the restaurants, has enabled Grubhub and Just Eat to turn a profit for years. Takeaway makes money in its home market of the Netherlands.
送餐業務可以分為兩個陣營:主要是盈利的老手和虧損的新人。老手組織成立于本世紀初，由美國上市公司Grubhub、歐洲Just Eat以及Takeaway領導。這三家公司的總市值約為180億美元。它們占據了最大的市場份額，為顧客提供了進入已經擁有自己送貨服務的餐廳的在線通道，比如比薩店、壽司店和中餐館。他們相對簡單的商業模式，即從餐館中收取一定的費用，使得Grubhub和Just Eat多年來一直盈利。而Takeaway則在荷蘭本土獲利頗豐。
The newbies, born more recently, have turned a once-tidy business into a food fight. They include listed firms such as Meituan of China and Delivery Hero of Germany, Uber Eats (part of Uber), Ele.me (owned by China’s Alibaba), and privately held DoorDash, based in San Francisco, and Deliveroo, from London. For most of them, delivery is their core business, so they share their cut of the bill with riders as well as restaurants. This substantially broadens the market to restaurants offering everything from steak to Hawaiian poke bowls. But margins suffer. Funded largely by venture capital, they have thrown subsidies at customers, forcing their veteran rivals onto the defensive. To catch up, the veterans are investing in advertising and delivery networks—at a big cost. This week Grubhub and Just Eat reported slumping earnings, and Takeaway mounting losses, as they spent heavily to fend off the upstarts.
而新來者是最近才有的，他們把原本井然有序的生意變成了一場食物大戰。這些公司包括中國的美團和德國的快遞超人、Uber Eats (屬于Uber)、餓了么(由中國阿里巴巴所有)、總部位于舊金山的私人控股公司DoorDash和總部位于倫敦的Deliveroo。對這些公司中的大部分來說，送貨是核心業務，所以他們與騎手和餐館分享賬單。這大大拓寬了市場，餐廳提供從牛排到夏威夷沙拉的一切。但是利潤受到了影響。其資金主要來自風險資本，向客戶提供補貼，迫使老牌競爭對手采取守勢。為了迎頭趕上，老手們在廣告和配送網絡上投入了巨資。本周，Grubhub和Just Eat公布收益下滑，外賣業務虧損不斷增加，因為投入了巨資抵御后來居上者。
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