Mcdonald’s to trial delivery via UberEats

McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) has announced plans to trial its long-awaited “McDelivery” service after teaming up with UberEats, Uber’s food delivery service.

The UK is one of the last markets that McDonald’s has launched its delivery service. The “McDelivery” service has been in use since 1993 across much of the US and launched in India back in 2004.

The trial will run across 22 outlets in London and a further ten in Leeds and Nottingham. During the trial phase, customers will have to be within 1.5 miles within a participating restaurant.

“Delivery is something that my customers often ask about, so it’s exciting that we’re now up and running.” said Claude Abi-Gerges, who runs five of the outlets in London taking part in the trial.

The fast-food chain will monitor the trial to see how successful it is.

The general manager of UberEats, Mathieu Proust, said the delivery service would let people “get the food they want” quickly.

Earlier this year the rival fast food chain KFC launched its delivery service in London after teaming up with Just Eat – who recently purchased rival Hungry House.

Delivery is an important market to tap into in the UK. Demand for takeaways increased up to 10 times faster than eating in the past year, with 599 million orders placed in the UK. These takeaways were worth £3.6 billion and were up by a whopping  50percent since 2008, according to NPD Group.

McDonald’s said quarterly profits rose by a better than expected 8% to $1.21bn in April. This was despite a fall in revenue by 3.9 percent to $5.68 billion.

The new delivery service will be available between 7 am to 2 am. Users will be charged a delivery fee by Uber of £2.50 – whatever the coast of the order. Orders will be delivered by a bicycle or moped-riding courier.

Earlier last year the chain also said it would experiment with table service.

Uber has faced a string of controversies recently. Most recently was boss Kalanick stepping down from CEO.