“Economic growth in the nation, which is the world’s fifth most populous, will boost the business as the unit works to bring more users and increase order sizes in the 35 cities where Foodpanda operates,” the business’s local head Muntaqa Peracha said in an interview.
“We have enough people who think digital first – when they think about food, they don’t think about calling up a restaurant,” said Peracha.
As many as 10 million people a year order from the platform in Pakistan.
Foodpanda is owned by Germany’s Delivery Hero SE and has a strong presence in Asia, where the market is geographically fragmented and dominant players often compete on price.
The company competes with Grab Holdings Ltd in Southeast Asia and Meituan, the Chinese e-commerce giant.
Delivery Hero doesn’t break out its results for Pakistan, but Peracha said he’s trying to raise its profile as a high-growth market for the business.
The online food delivery market in Pakistan is expected to reach US$2.35 billion this year and revenue will grow at about 8% annually driven by higher smartphone use and a young, more urban population, according to data from research firm Statista Market Insights.
The company had recently weathered a period of record inflation in Pakistan that drove a number of companies out of business, including some rivals such as the local unit of Uber Technologies Inc’s Careem Inc and Airlift Technologies Pvt.
The economy is recovering after Pakistan secured loans from the International Monetary Fund that improved its financial conditions and helped it improve its credit rating.
“You need to have a bit of patience to go through the peaks and the troughs and just survive,” said Peracha.
“So we are figuring out what can we do as an organisation to show that Pakistan still has potential,” he said.
Delivery Hero has been working to exit some parts of Asia.
Foodpanda recently quit Thailand while the sale of its Taiwan business to Uber was terminated because of regulatory issues.
It was also in talks last year to sell the Foodpanda brand in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, but didn’t reach a final agreement.