The Foodpanda group is a worldwide mobile food delivery marketplace headquartered in Berlin, Germany. It was launched in March 2012. It allows you to select from local restaurants and place orders via the mobile application as well as the website. Customers order food by entering their postcodes on the site and browsing for food from a list of restaurants. Customers create meals by browsing restaurant menus and selecting items they want to order before entering an address and proceeding to payment. Restaurants receive these orders and then deliver them to customers. Foodpanda sends an SMS to confirm orders and to inform them about the estimated delivery time.

Foodpanda is growing through acquisitions. It acquired Room Service in Malaysia and Singapore, City Delivery in the Philippines, EatOye in Pakistan, Koziness in Hong Kong, and TastyKhana and Just Eat in India.

Just three months after acquiring Pune-based competitor TastyKhana, the global online food delivery marketplace, Foodpanda, has bought one of its biggest rivals in India, Just Eat.

Just Eat was first launched as Hungry Bangalore, but was changed to Just Eat in 2011 when it was acquired by the international brand which competes with Foodpanda worldwide. Just Eat has now received a minority holding in Foodpanda as a part of the deal, and the management will be kept on as it is. In Bengaluru, Just Eat has over 800 partner restaurants, and the business has already achieved success. Chains such as Pizza Corner, Kati Zone, and Vasudev Adigas and restaurants like Birinz are the top clients of Just Eat in Bangalore.

According to the Managing Director of Food Panda, Mr. Chadda, the two companies will continue to operate independently. That is, the Just Eat brand will continue to exist separately. The acquisition has made Foodpanda the largest player in the food ordering market in India.

Questions
1. Discuss Foodpanda’s increasing business through acquisition.
2. The decision to keep Just Eat as a separate brand name is reasonable. If so, justify it.