Top 3 Companies Fiercely Compete for User Acquisition
Baemin Checks Coupang Eats with 'Baemin1Plus'
Yogiyo Changes CEO and Completely Revamps App
Competition in the delivery platform market is intensifying this year. Although the explosive market growth during the pandemic has slowed, the top three companies are striving to secure as many users as possible. The leading delivery service Baemin is openly countering the rapidly recovering Coupang Eats, while Yogiyo, whose second-place position is under threat, is making a determined effort to implement comprehensive changes.
According to data from mobile index provider IGAWorks on the 16th, last month the monthly active users (MAU) of the three major delivery apps?Baemin, Yogiyo, and Coupang Eats?were 22.45 million, 6.36 million, and 5.53 million respectively. Compared to the previous month, Baemin’s users increased by 12.5%, while Yogiyo and Coupang Eats grew by 9.1% and 6.6% respectively. The delivery industry typically considers the year-end period as peak season, and user numbers often stagnate or decline in January. The recent user growth among these three companies is believed to reflect the effects of intense competition and associated marketing efforts.
Baemin’s confrontation with Coupang Eats over the recently launched 'Baemin1Plus' service last month exemplifies this competitive landscape. Baemin1Plus is Baemin’s own delivery service, where Baemin takes full responsibility from mediation to delivery, featuring an automatic application of optimal delivery fees based on analysis of customers’ ordering environments. As a result, some restaurants saw reduced delivery fees for customers after joining Baemin1Plus. However, Coupang Eats raised an issue by informing that if delivery fees and other conditions were not the same, those restaurants would be excluded from their Wow Membership discount program. Baemin formalized this issue by announcing support for merchants excluded from Coupang Eats’ Wow discount due to using Baemin1Plus. Coupang Eats responded by stating that since the Wow discount is a benefit fully funded by Coupang for its members, it is natural to ensure that restaurants do not offer customers unfavorable ordering conditions.
Industry insiders believe that Baemin’s raising of this issue is partly due to Coupang Eats’ steep growth. Coupang Eats’ users increased by 58.0% compared to a year ago. Their strategy of offering a 10% discount at designated restaurants to over 11 million Coupang Wow Membership subscribers is considered effective.
The situation has become urgent for Yogiyo, whose second-place position is also under threat. Based on daily active users last month, Yogiyo already lost the second place in the industry. The gap between second and third place in monthly active users has narrowed to under one million. Yogiyo appointed Jeon Jun-hee as the new CEO last month to revitalize the company. Jeon, a tech expert who co-founded ESTsoft in 1993 while still in university and has worked in Silicon Valley, joined Yogiyo in 2022 after stints at Google, Uber, and Coupang. Leveraging his expertise, Jeon completely revamped the Yogiyo app’s user interface (UI) after taking office, featuring AI-based personalized recommendation functions. The service aims to provide a customized delivery ordering environment for each customer.
An industry insider said, “The delivery industry is highly competitive, and customers tend to subscribe to multiple services and selectively use them depending on the situation. If a differentiated ordering experience is not provided, it is easy to be pushed out. We expect service competition to continue in various forms this year.”
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