Three years after paying $1.1 billion to acquire Drizly, Uber is closing down the app that delivers alcohol.
Uber reports that Drizly, which was aided by the pandemic-era at-home delivery boom, would formally close its doors at the end of March 2024, despite having grown to become the largest online marketplace for alcohol in North America.
Uber Eats, Uber’s delivery app, was to merge its marketplace with the booze delivery service, which ran as a stand-alone app.
Uber’s senior vice president of deliveries, Pierre Dimitri Gore-Coty, stated in a statement that the company has chosen to concentrate on its “fundamental Uber Eats approach of assisting customers in getting practically anything – from food to groceries to alcohol – all on a single app.”
The business recently shut down Cornershop, its grocery buying app, in an effort to combine Uber’s goods delivery services into Uber Eats. Uber Eats still offers delivery services for groceries and alcoholic beverages.
Gore-Coty concluded his comments by saying, “We’re grateful to the Drizly team for their many contributions to the growth of the BevAlc delivery category as the original industry pioneer.”
The first report on Drizly’s closure came from Axios.
Uber was going through a shift when it acquired Drizly. Early in the epidemic in 2020 and 2021, a push to stay at home caused losses for Uber’s core ridesharing business while its delivery service grew rapidly.
A few months before to acquiring Drizly, Uber also paid $2.65 billion to acquire Postmates, another delivery firm, in an attempt to strengthen its position as a market leader in the delivery industry.
On the other hand, recent quarters have shown a recovery in Uber’s ridesharing business. Uber announced in November that its third-quarter gross bookings exceeded even its own projections.