After the exit of CEO Nauman Sikandar Mirza foodpanda has appointed Muntaqa Peracha as Managing Director (MD) for foodpanda Pakistan, with effect from 1 June 2022.
The departure of Nauman Sikandar Mirza in February this year had come as a surprise to many. After all, if there is one tech company/startup in Pakistan that has absolutely and always dominated its space, it is foodpanda. Helming this gargantuan effort throughout had been Nauman Sikander Mirza, who in the past seven years had stood as both witness and architect to foodpanda’s acquisition of EatOye, the entry of DeliveryHero into the Pakistani market, the massive growth that foodpanda saw after the onset of the pandemic, and the expansion into groceries that came with PandaMart.
Now as MD, Muntaqa will oversee foodpanda’s overall operations in the country, growth and expansion, as well as the launch of new verticals. Muntaqa takes the helm after serving two and a half years as Commercial Director in foodpanda Pakistan, helping make the brand a household name across the country.
During his tenure, Muntaqa oversaw the core food delivery business with a focus on building foodpanda as the preferred platform for partnering vendors, consumers and riders. He played a critical part in growing foodpanda to be the leading food and grocery delivery platform in the country, establishing key relationships across the industry, empowering teams locally within the business and driving strategic investments in capacity building. Muntaqa also expanded the foodpanda HomeChefs programme to more than ten thousand registered home-based businesses today, and launched new verticals such as cloud kitchens and pandago, and foodpanda’s Logistics-as-a-Service vertical that provides express, on-demand deliveries.
Building on more than 18 years of experience leading teams in high-growth tech companies in Pakistan and beyond, Muntaqa brings on board his expertise in the areas of emerging markets, strategy, growth, commercial innovation and business/profitability turnarounds.
“Muntaqa has been an integral part of foodpanda’s growth journey for these past few years, and I’m confident that with his leadership, foodpanda will continue to scale across Pakistan and reach new milestones in the years ahead,” said Jakob Angele, CEO, foodpanda Asia.
“I’m honoured to take up the mantle as MD of foodpanda Pakistan,” said Muntaqa Peracha. “I thank the foodpanda leadership team for their trust, and look forward to leading the team to grow our footprint in Pakistan, and better serve our community of riders, merchants and customers across the country.”
Foodpanda’s growth
On the performance side, foodpanda has seen amazing growth under Nauman. From the numbers obtained by Profit, foodpanda delivered roughly 23,000 orders per day on average in 2019, 120,000 in 2020 and 162,000 for 2021. Numbers for 2020 and 2021 are inclusive of food and grocery orders under pandamart. This growth, however, has come at the expense of a massive cash burn of approximately 15-20 million Euros for 2019, 25-30 million Euros in 2020 and 25-30 million Euros in 2021.
Sources tell us that foodpanda is under pressure to achieve profitability but that could be a difficult undertaking in the Pakistani market. Pakistan’s market conditions are tough that is why Cheetay, a competitor to foodpanda, has also shut down the food delivery business and operates as an aggregator for restaurants only now. The market is treacherous: restaurants already abhor foodpanda’s commission structure which means revenue would be limited; restaurants are revolting by creating their own websites, offering better discounts than foodpanda and offering free deliveries against foodpanda’s delivery fees, limiting revenue for foodpanda. While customer acquisition costs and marketing costs are very high. From a company source, Profit has learned that foodpanda’s marketing budget alone for one month is roughly Rs600 million, which translates into Rs7.2 billion or roughly 36 million euros. High costs are the reason foodpanda had an estimated cash burn of 15-20 million euros in 2019, 25-30 million euros in 2020 and about the same in 2021.
On the other hand, Delivery Hero has been eyeing positive earnings for 2022 which means all markets are under pressure to increase their earnings and foodpanda Pakistan is no exception. In fact foodpanda made an attempt to increase commissions in September 2020 and faced resistance from restaurants. It could be that the higher management was not satisfied with Nauman’s performance on controlling cash burn and increasing profitability within stipulated time.
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