Glovo buys Mercadão

The home delivery service company Glovo has bought up the Portuguese startup Mercadão.

The decision to buy the Q. Commerce company (quick electronic commerce) which is characterised by its fast delivery of online groceries has come at a time when e-commerce has increased with Covid-19 accelerating and strengthening the home delivery market even more.
Glovo expects to achieve a gross turnover of €300 million in Portugal and Spain in 2021. Glovo has acquired not just the Portuguese startup Mercadão, but also the Spanish home delivery startup Lola Market following an investment round at the start of the year which enabled €450 million of investment to be netted.
With the purchase of the two platforms, “Glovo can now position itself in three segments: essential goods, quick access convenience goods and conventional shopping list goods”, states a note to the markets released on Tuesday.
The deliveries giant says that it expects to achieve a “€300 million gross turnover in 2021”, an amount that should triple next year to around €1Bn.
However, the note states that both platforms will maintain their respective identities, will operate independently from Glovo and will be under the leadership of Mercadão CEO Gonçalo Soares da Costa.
“The goal will be to replicate the success of Mercadão and Lola Market in all the countries in which Glovo operates, initially expanded in Poland and Italy”.
Mercadão is a marketplace that was created in 2018 which allows the purchase and delivery of Pingo Doce supermarket products and those of other brands such as sports merchandise retailer Decathlon.
Lola Market in Spain operates in the same way and has large supermarket partners such as Lidl, Carrefour and Minipreço.