Foodpanda, Uber take meal apps fight to Bangkok’s food idyll

A courier for Foodpanda, a meal-delivery service operated by Delivery Hero AG, rides a motorcycle along a road in Bangkok, Thailand, on Friday, March 16, 2018. Bangkok's famed love affair with food is spilling over to meal-delivery apps, a fledgling sector that Foodpanda projects will surge in 2018 as competition intensifies. Photographer: Brent Lewin/Bloomberg

Bangkok’s famed love affair with food is spilling over to meal-delivery apps, a fledgling sector that Delivery Hero AG’s Foodpanda projects will surge in 2018 as competition intensifies.

Foodpanda, Line Corp’s Line Man and Uber Technologies Inc’s Uber Eats are using promotions, such as free delivery or discounts, to woo customers in a sector they see as underdeveloped compared with Hong Kong or Singapore. Bangkok may have some of the best regional potential for meal apps as it has so many street stalls and great restaurants, said Foodpanda’s Thailand chief executive Alexander Felde.