Uber has confirmed that it has shut down the Instant Delivery service in New York City. It’s an UberEats feature that provides users with a list of selected lunch items that can be delivered to them in ten minutes or less. Instant Delivery was available to NYC residents since last year but clearly the response wasn’t good enough to convince Uber to not axe this service for NYC.
“We’ve decided to narrow our focus,” writes Uber in an email to users informing them that Instant Delivery will no longer be available in New York City. It says that this decision has been made to ensure that it doesn’t lose its focus to bring users “the most exciting selection, the highest quality food, and the fastest delivery time.”
This decision appears to be limited to New York City only because Uber hasn’t said if it has plans to phase out Instant Delivery in some of the other markets it’s available in. Those who are based outside of New York City have nothing to worry about, yet.
Uber is serious about competing in the food delivery game. About a month ago it uncoupled this service from its main app and launched a standalone UberEats app to better focus on its meal delivery service. The company says that it has seen an “incredible response” to UberEats.