Online Food Delivery Became a Trillion-Dollar Industry this Year; Entire Market to Grow by 60% by 2027

November 20, 8:11 am

Only a few industries have seen such explosive growth amid the COVID-19 pandemic like online food delivery. But what started as a must-do during the lockdowns became a trillion-dollar industry with billions of people using mobile apps to order meals and groceries.

According to data presented by AltIndex.com, the online food delivery services generated $1.02trn in revenue in 2023, 20% more than last year. The entire market is expected to grow by a further 60% and reach a $1.65trn value by 2027.

People Will Spend $1.1T on Grocery Delivery and $510B on Meal Ordering in 2027

How the world eats has changed drastically over the years, and online food delivery has had a major role in that. Today, people can order any meal they like or even shop for groceries by using an app, which was hard to imagine just a decade ago. The convenience of ordering food from the comfort of your home has drawn billions of users to the market and helped companies like Uber Eats, Just Eat, Deliveroo, and Doordash double and triple their revenue.

Today, these companies are part of a trillion-dollar industry set to continue growing in the following years. According to Statista Digital Market Insights, the global online food delivery market is expected to gross $1.02trn in 2023, 20% more than last year and 185% more than in 2019.

Over 60% of that value, or around $630bn, will come from grocery delivery, the market's largest and highest-grossing segment. Meal delivery will bring in the remaining $390bn. However, with more and more people using mobile apps to order meals and groceries each year, these figures will significantly grow by 2027.

Statista expects consumers worldwide to spend a whopping $1.14trn on grocery delivery in 2027, or 80% more than this year. The meal ordering segment will see a 30% growth in this period, causing the total spending to jump to $510bn by 2027.

In regional comparison, Asia is by far the largest online food delivery market, generating $564bn in revenue or more than half the world's total in 2023. Statista also expects the Asian market to see the biggest revenue growth of all regions, jumping by 54% to $870bn by 2027. North America, the second-largest market, will hit $355bn in total spending in 2023. This figure is projected to surge by 42% to $507bn by 2027. Far below, Europe follows with $194bn in revenue by 2027, up from $144bn this year.

More than 3.6 Billion People will use Online Food Delivery Services by 2027

The rising number of people using apps for meal and grocery delivery will push the total user count in the market to impressive highs. The Statista survey shows roughly 2.7 billion people used online food delivery services in 2023. Around 70% of all users, or 1.9 billion, used apps like Uber Eats, Doordash, and Deliveroo for meal delivery.

Statista expects the number of people using online food delivery services to jump by 33% in the next four years and hit a whopping 3.6 billion by 2027. The meal delivery segment will see a 31% growth in this period, with the total user count rising from 1.9 billion to 2.5 billion. The number of users in the grocery delivery segment is expected to grow even more and jump by 42% to two billion in 2027.

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