Taiwan said on Wednesday that the merger would seriously hurt market competition and rejected the ride-hailing behemoth Uber’s offer to purchase Delivery Hero’s Foodpanda on the island.
By the first half of 2025, the US ride-hailing behemoth planned to pay US$950 million to acquire Foodpanda Taiwan, combining the two leading companies in Taiwan’s food delivery industry.
“If Uber acquires Foodpanda, it will be completely unrestrained by competition,” Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) vice chairman Chen Chi-ming told a press conference.
“The disadvantages to market competition from this merger far outweigh its economic benefits,” Chen said, adding that the merged companies’ market share would exceed 90 percent.
“No corrective measures could sufficiently ensure competition would be maintained,” he said.
The May announcement was referred to by Uber as one of Taiwan’s biggest foreign transactions outside of the semiconductor sector.
Chen added that in order to determine how the merger will affect competition, the FTC performed an economic analysis and got more than 600 answers from food delivery services and other pertinent organizations.
According to spokesperson Su Po-hao, Taiwan’s delivery trade union applauded the FTC’s ruling, stating that it ensures “greater benefits for the future of the food delivery industry.”
According to the union, the combination would have resulted in a monopoly and significant losses for customers, vendors, and delivery riders.
According to May’s statement, the firms have also come to a separate deal wherein Uber would purchase US$300 million worth of freshly issued ordinary shares of Delivery Hero.
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