With Uber Eats' fast growth comes potential for profit

Uber Eats has been focused from the beginning on getting food delivery from 40 to 45 minutes (from the order time) down to, its global average now of 31 minutes.

In three years, the Uber Eats restaurant food delivery service has grown from an experiment to serving much of the US and major cities worldwide. By year's end, the ride-hailing company says it will cover 70% of the US population and be in 243 metro areas, mainly by expanding into smaller cities.

It's already in over 300 cities in 36 countries with many international deliveries done by bicycle. Jason Droege, an Uber vice president who leads Uber Everything, the unit that explores how to build new businesses off the Uber network, says Eats is growing as fast as the ride-hailing service did in its early days.