DoorDash Looks to Grow Beyond US and Beyond Restaurants

DoorDash is reportedly aiming to diversify beyond meal deliveries to diners in the U.S.

“The two largest areas of investment are expansion and penetration outside of the U.S., as well as the same outside of restaurants,” CEO Tony Xu said in an interview with the Financial Times (FT) published Monday (Jan. 1). 

The FT notes that DoorDash has the monetary heft to make this expansion happen, having produced $878 million of free cash flow in the 12 months to September 30 of last year.

The company has since last year expanded into countries such as Austria and Iceland through its purchase of the Finnish delivery service Wolt. Now, the report says, new job posts indicate DoorDash is considering a move into Luxembourg.

The FT, citing information from YipitData, notes that DoorDash has nearly doubled its market share in the last five years and now accounts for 59% of the U.S. restaurant delivery market, almost double that of Uber’s share.

“We’re not going to invest behind inefficient growth” and will keep a “high bar” for acquisitions, Xu said. “We’re not investing into every single project at the maybe levels that we like . . . but we’re always looking to reinvest.”

DoorDash’s plans to expand follow a year in which it and other restaurant aggregators expanded their models beyond food delivery, adding new features and “finding innovative ways to drive loyalty,” as PYMNTS wrote recently.

For DoorDash, that meant the co-branded credit card it launched with Chase in March, offering 4% cash back on orders placed via the aggregator or its subsidiary Caviar along with a year of free DashPass.

With that offer, the companies reached out to the 35% of American consumers who say they are interested in receiving card-linked offers from restaurants and food delivery services, per PYMNTS Intelligence research. Another 9% cite this as the type of card-linked reward as the one they are most interested in receiving.

Also last year, DoorDash introduced its “Package Pickup” feature, through which consumers can request a driver to pick up prepaid UPS, USPS and FedEx packages to be returned to a designated location. 

“The move showcased the aggregator finding new ways to leverage its driver network well beyond the original use case,” PYMNTS wrote.