Uber has moved to absorb Delivery Hero’s operations in 50 markets, which includes Kenya, handing the American ride-hailing giant control of a business it has spent years competing against on Nairobi’s streets.
The €14.8 billion transaction folds Glovo Kenya into Uber’s global network rather than carving it out to a third party, unlike 14 European markets that go to SSW Partners instead.
For Kenyan riders, restaurants, and consumers, the practical effect is straightforward: the two biggest names in food and grocery delivery are about to share one owner. The Competition Authority of Kenya‘s most recent market study put Glovo’s share of food delivery at 33% and its share of grocery delivery at 46%, well ahead of Uber Eats, Jumia Food, and Bolt Food.
Jumia Food had already exited the market in December 2023, and Bolt Food has struggled to keep pace with the two leaders. A single company now controlling both Glovo and Uber Eats concentrates market power in a way Kenya has not seen since Jumia’s departure.
Glovo Kenya arrives at this deal from a position of strength, not weakness. It opened a new Nairobi headquarters earlier this year and committed roughly Sh10 billion in additional investment through 2030.
The platform runs in 12 towns and cities, works with more than 6,000 merchants, and puts about 2,200 riders on the road daily, alongside a workforce it planned to double to 1,200 employees within two years. Those growth plans now sit inside Uber’s decision-making rather than Delivery Hero’s, and how much of that ambition survives the integration is an open question.
The regulatory path is not a formality. Kenya’s mandatory, suspensory merger notification rules, introduced this year, mean the CAK must clear the deal before it can close, and the authority has already shown it is willing to act. It ordered both Glovo and Uber Eats to open physical offices in the country back in 2024.
The Communications Authority of Kenya has also just created a dedicated Courier Hailing Service Provider licence, taking effect July 29, that will apply to both platforms and gives regulators another lever to pull.
Three groups will be watching the CAK’s review closely. Restaurants and merchants worry about commission terms once they are negotiating with a single dominant platform instead of two competing ones. Riders, most of them gig workers without formal employment protections, want assurances that consolidation will not mean fewer jobs or worse terms. Consumers, who have benefited from price competition between Glovo and Uber Eats, stand to lose that leverage if the merged entity faces no serious rival.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2027, giving Kenyan regulators and the businesses and riders who depend on this market, more than a year to make their case before the merger takes final shape.
