Glovo to double down African investment in the next 12 months but will it stay put?

Spain’s Glovo picks up $528M as Europe’s food delivery market continues to heat up

Now present in 23 countries, Africa represents 30% of the company’s geographical footprint. And the Spanish company plans to be live in 30 countries before the end of next year, a decision in part due to an IPO target in three years.

Glovo says it is a market leader in 80% of the countries where it has operations. The company’s grocery service arm has grown the fastest and revenue has been increasing significantly after a steady rise in orders. To meet the growing needs of customers, Glovo has had to invest heavily in dark stores and launched virtual brands for restaurants in July.

It’s not clear if Glovo will extend these add-on services to Africa where it has its largest market in terms of population size: Nigeria. Yet, the West African nation does not come without its own fair share of troubles like poor logistics infrastructure and an unpredictable regulatory environment.

Despite that, a couple of food delivery platforms like Gokada and Jumia Food, a subsidiary of e-commerce giant Jumia have tried to scale, finding varying degrees of success doing so.

While Glovo will have to compete for market share with these players, it is bullish because of its multi-category strategy, for which grocery sales account for half of its business in some African markets.

That said, Glovo’s performance in emerging markets is questionable. Last year, the company pulled out of all the Latin American countries — Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic. It sold operations in these markets to Delivery Hero for $272 million.

The company also exited the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt and Turkey) and Uruguay and Puerto Rico in January 2020.

Over the past couple of years, Glovo has said it wanted to achieve profitability in a short amount of time. The delivery space is a thin-margin business and it is thinner in emerging markets. This played a part in why Glovo exited both Middle East and Latin America. The market isn’t any different in Africa, and time will tell if the Spanish delivery will stay put, exit, or close shop.

Whatever the case, Glovo says it is “committed to continuing its policy to hire top local talent” on the continent and plans to double its number of staff and add an extra 200 employees before the end of next year.

“Our expansion in Nigeria, Ghana, and our upcoming launch in Tunisia is something we’ve been looking at for some time now, so it’s great to be able to make it official. There’s been an unprecedented spike in the on-demand delivery business in Africa and the expansion of our services to new countries and cities is both a reflection of that trend and a testament to our commitment to the continent. We’re looking forward to making food, groceries, pharmaceuticals, and retail products available to our new users at the touch of a button,” William Benthall, Glovo’s general manager of sub-Saharan Africa, said in a statement.