优步送客还送餐
在线食品外卖现在正炙手可热，Just Eat和Deliveroo这样的送餐公司有了一个新的竞争者：优步推出UberEATS服务。而且该服务目前不仅免费，还没有最低消费额。
测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：
incumbent 在职者；现任者[ɪn'kʌmb(ə)nt]
separate 单独的 [(for v.) ˈsepəreɪt; (for adj.) ˈseprət]
courier 通讯员['kʊrɪə]
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Uber launches UK food delivery service（563words）
By Lauren Fedor in London
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Uber has launched a food delivery service in London, in a move that is likely to put pressure on incumbents such as Just Eat and Deliveroo.
The San Francisco-based ride-hailing app that is known for disrupting the taxi industry said on Thursday that it had signed up more than 150 restaurants in central London to its new restaurant delivery app, UberEATS.
The service has already launched in 18 cities in the US, Canada, France, Australia and Singapore. “People love being able to push a button to book a car and now they can order great food with us too,” said Jo Bertram, Uber’s regional general manager in the UK. “We’ll bring lunch, treats and dinner to Londoners with the same choice, convenience and value we’re already known for.” More than 25,000 drivers are registered with Uber’s ride-hailing app in London, and the company says it has more than 1.8m customers in the capital.
UberEATS, however, is a separate app and will rely on couriers using bicycles or mopeds, rather than car drivers, to deliver restaurant orders.
The company declined to say how many couriers were registered to work for the service, but said “thousands” had signed up in London.
Like rival Deliveroo, UberEATS will take a commission from restaurants for every sale, while also charging a small fee — expected to be £2.50 in the UK — from each customer.
Unlike other services, Uber will have no minimum price for orders.
David Reynolds, an analyst at Jefferies, said UberEATS’s expansion was “discernibly bad news” for London-based Deliveroo, which runs delivery order software for restaurants and transports meals with an army of cyclists.
Many of the restaurant chains UberEATS has signed up to its service in central London — including Pho, Comptoir Libanais and Snog — already have contracts with Deliveroo. Dan Warne, Deliveroo’s UK managing director, said: “The entrance of competitors into the market shows that there’s huge demand for new approaches to food delivery in the UK. Indeed, we believe we’re creating a whole new market.”
Deliveroo operates in 40 UK cities and Mr Warne said he expected to roll out the service in more than 20 additional cities by the end of September.
“We see enormous room for further growth and innovation in this sector,” he added. In November, Deliveroo raised capital to take its total funding to about $200m, making it one of Europe’s best-funded technology start-ups. Last month, the app secured its biggest contract with PizzaExpress, signing up more than 200 of the UK restaurant chain’s locations.
Deliveroo is just one of multiple well-funded start-ups, however, in an increasingly crowded food delivery space in Europe.
One rival, the Berlin-based group Take Eat Easy, is backed by Rocket Internet, the German start-up investor that has snapped up more than €600m of equity in food delivery services across Europe and Asia.
Larger competitors include the UK’s listed Just Eat, which has a market capitalisation of close to £3bn, and Germany’s Delivery Hero, which has raised $1.4bn from investors. Both companies target the cheaper end of the takeaway market.
Data from Euromonitor show that growth in home delivery and takeaway food has outpaced that of restaurants each year since the financial crisis. Between 2009 and 2014, the UK market for take away and delivery expanded 2.7 per cent to £6.5bn, while the value of food bought in restaurants fell 5 per cent to £17.1bn.
请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：
1. Which country’s users can use UberEATS at the first time from June?
A. US
B. UK
C. China
D. Germany
2. Which one of the following is not true for UberEATS?
A. it need couriers using bicycles or mopeds
B. it is a separate app
C. it will rely on car drivers
D. it can bring lunch, treats and dinner to people
3. What is the difference from UberEATS and other rivals?
A. commission from restaurants
B. small fee from each customer
C. minimum price for orders
D. means of transport
4. How many UK cities will be covered by Deliveroo by the end of September?
A. 20
B. 40
C. 60
D. 200
[1] 答案 B. UK
解释：6月送餐服务开始在伦敦推出，此前已在美国、加拿大、澳大利亚、新加坡推出。
[2] 答案 C. it will rely on car drivers
解释：这是一款独立的app，送餐不是通过汽车司机而是通过快递员。
[3] 答案 C. minimum price for orders
解释：UberEATS与Deliveroo, UberEATS不同的是不限制最低消费。
[4] 答案 C. 60
解释：外卖服务平台Deliveroo现在已经覆盖了40个英国城市，预计在9月前增加20个城市，共计60.
