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bne Tech
March 29, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 23
Internet major Mail.ru's Delivery Club plans to double revenues in 2019
Russia's leading food delivery service, internet major Mail.ru’s Delivery Club, plans to double revenues in 2019, Vedomosti daily reported on March 21 citing the general director of the service Andrey Tsitsenko.
The Russian food delivery market is rapidly expanding and is set for a showdown between the two biggest internet groups, namely Mail.ru and Yandex, which runs Yandex.Eda.
In 2018, the revenues of the Delivery Club service increased by 48% to RUB1.9bn. In the first quarter of this year, the top line of Delivery Club grew at a rate of more than 100%. The plan is to maintain such a pace with the help of a marketing cam- paign and by increasing the number of delivery personnel, developing deliveries from fast-food chains (McDonalds and KFC deliveries start this year), and launching in new cities.
Currently Delivery Club operates in 107 Russian cities and plans to enter another 50 in 2019. It is estimated that Delivery Club has an 80% market share, with its closest competitor being Yandex. Eda (Yandex.Eats).
Maxim Frolov of Yandex.Eda boasted to Vedomosti that the company already has the market no. 1 position in Moscow, but Delivery Club claims to have a market share there of 60%. Sbebrank CIB in December 2018 estimated the market shares at 43% and 46%, respectively.
Most recently Sberbank CIB has reiterated its Buy rating on Yandex and increased the target price by 4% to $51 per share, mostly due to an increase of the Yandex.Taxi valuation driven by the analysis of the food delivery business.
The bank expects Yandex.Eats, the food delivery segment of the taxi business to grow between 2018 and 2022 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 88% and its net revenues at a CAGR above 100%.
At the same time, the anticipated spin-off of Delivery Club, along with the closure of the major AliExpress Russia deal, were seen as the main short-term catalysts for Mail.ru stock by Sberbank on March 4.
Bulgarian prosecutors order block on services of car ride-sharing service Maxim
Bulgaria’s prosecutor’s office said on March 25 it has issued orders to block the operations of ride-sharing service Maxim for a period of six months.
Maxim has been operating in Bulgaria since 2014, offering ride-sharing services similar to those
of Uber, through a mobile phone application, according to Sofia Globe.