Popular ride-hailing platform Uber announced today that it plans on acquiring a large portion of shares at Cornershop, an online on-demand grocery delivery service based in Santiago, Chile. The San Francisco-based ridesharing company plans on closing the agreement sometime in early 2020. This is the second time the Chilean firm has changed ownership - the platform was first purchased by Walmart in September 2018.
Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, commented on the purchase agreement:
“Whether it’s getting a ride, ordering food from your favorite restaurant, or soon, getting groceries delivered, we want Uber to be the operating system for your everyday life. We’re excited to partner with the team at Cornershop to scale their vision, and look forward to working with them to bring grocery delivery to millions of consumers on the Uber platform.”
The Cornershop app is available to both Android and iOS users alike in Spanish and English. Initially the grocery delivery service was only available in Latin America, specifically Chile - where the firm is headquartered - and Mexico. However, an announcement made by Walmart Canada yesterday revealed that Cornershop will be expanding its services to the Canadian market.
Oskar Hjertonsson, founder and CEO of Cornershop, also made a statement on the second acquisition:
“In 2015 we started Cornershop with primarily the Latin American market in mind and we couldn"t be more excited to work with Uber to help us take that mission much further. Uber is the perfect partner as we embark on our quest to bring our unique flavor of on-demand groceries from incredible retail partners to many more countries around the world."
Uber maintains that the acquisition will not alter the current operations or leadership at Cornershop. It is unclear, however, whether this will affect the Chile-based platform"s relations or agreements with Walmart and if so, to what extent. Considering the fact that Cornershop will have to report to a board dominated by Uber representatives, it can be assumed that the ride-hailing platform will have a heavier say as compared to Walmart when it comes to corporate decision-making.