Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses in the U.S. have been in their lowest point, some even filed for bankruptcy. However, the current health crisis has massively helped delivery enterprises. As CNET, “grocery delivery apps have seen a surge in use.”

On Tuesday (July 7), ride-renting firm Uber has launched grocery delivery among to their list of commodity products. The grocery delivery option is being made available across the America continent.

The new grocery delivery service of the Uber application is being co-run with Cornershop, a Latin America on-demand grocery delivery service. Uber and Cornershop’s collaboration started in October 2019 when Uber acquired a huge tag of investment to the Chile-based company. However, as per CNET, Uber’s regulatory approval in acquiring Cornershop is still a pending case in Mexico, despite being approved by Chilean authorities before-handedly.

In addition, Uber is currently in negotiating talks with delivery application Postmates. As NPR reported, Uber is buying Postmates in a soaring $2.65 billion deal. Postmates surge of uses amid the COVID-19 lockdowns is the factor Uber wisely taken for granted considering a 75% flaunt of their ride services.

With almost all of the people being forced to isolate in their homes due to the pandemic, many household has rapidly become very dependent on the convenient food and grocery delivery applications for provision. Such applications that emerged victorious are DoorDash, Instacart, Caviar, and Grubhub.

As NPR wrote, referencing the data from Edison Trends, Uber Eats is the world’s second largest food delivery service in the U.S. while Postmates dominates U.S. major cities, such as Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. If Postmates and Uber Eats combine, an increase of 37% market share will take effect, which is a great earning to compensate Uber’s ride service deficit.

Meanwhile, Uber’s very own restaurant delivery service Uber Eats has seen a surge of more than 100% compared to the figures last year. Uber has also seen a 176% increase in grocery delivery in more than 30 countries where they conducted a pre-launch. While Cornership, to date, is servicing over 1 million orders per month.

Uber’s new grocery delivery service has been made available on July 5 in no more than 19 major cities: Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, and Canada. As per Uber, the U.S. launch will begin on the latter dates of July starting in Dallas and Miami. A worldwide coverage of Uber’s new grocery delivery service will soon take place.

Once the application is updated, a new icon will add up to the options for the grocery delivery service. The users can choose from any of the nearest supermarkets where they can variously select their desired grocery items and add it to the shopping cart. Then, the app will allow the virtual shoppers to select a timeslot for the goods’ delivery.